Top court ‘opens the floodgates’ for part-time workers’ claims
The Supreme Court “may have opened the floodgates to a large number of potential claims against employers” after ruling that part-time workers claiming discrimination do not need to prove their part-time status was the “sole reason” for less favourable treatment.
The case was brought by Warren Augustine, a part-time private hire driver for Data Cars, after he argued that being charged the same fixed weekly “circuit fee” for access to its booking system as full-time drivers was discriminatory, because it meant he ended up paying a higher hourly rate to work.
The Employment Tribunal, Employment Appeal Tribunal, and the Court of Appeal previously dismissed aspects of the claim, but on Wednesday, the Supreme Court allowed his appeal.
The top court was asked whether part-time workers’ regulations apply if a worker’s part-time status is the cause of their less favourable treatment, which the Lord Justices agreed. As a result, lawyers have said the court’s reasoning, led by Lady Simler, established a broader victory for part-time workers on the legal standard for future claims.
Katie Maguire, partner at Devonshires, said: “The Supreme Court’s judgment goes directly to the causation threshold at the heart of the part-time workers regulations. By adopting a broader causation test, the court has lowered the threshold for claimants seeking to establish that their part-time status was a reason for less favourable treatment.”
She added, “Part-time workers will now only need to show that their part-time status was one of the operative reasons for the treatment they received, rather than being the sole or predominant reason.”
“However, the court has also recognised that not every disadvantage experienced by a part-time worker will necessarily amount to unlawful treatment,” Clare Brennan, partner at Hunters Law, added.
Maguire added, “This may have opened the floodgates to a large number of potential claims against employers, especially in sectors where part-time working is far more prevalent and where operational constraints often come hand-in-hand with decisions about working patterns.”
This judgment came as the Employment Tribunal was already facing a surge in caseloads, driven by the major overhaul of employment laws that followed the implementation of the Employment Rights Act.