M TRACEY v Secretary of State for Work & Pensions — 2023

The claimant brought claims of indirect disability discrimination and unlawful deduction from wages against her former employer. The claims arose from the 2016 Employee Deal, under which employees could accept increased pay in exchange for increased rota flexibility, including possible evening and Saturday working. The claimant remained on her Legacy Contract because of caring responsibilities for her mother, who had dementia, and said the lack of assurances about rota flexibility led to lower pay than colleagues who accepted the Employee Deal.

The tribunal treated the disability discrimination claim as an associative indirect discrimination claim. It held that section 19 of the Equality Act 2010 does not allow such claims because the wording of the provision requires the person alleging indirect discrimination to have the relevant protected characteristic. The tribunal also stated that, if it had not struck out the claim on that basis, it would have made a deposit order on the time jurisdiction issue because the act complained of ended by 28 August 2016 and the claim was brought about five and a half years out of time.

The unlawful deduction from wages claim was struck out because the claimant had not signed up for the Employee Deal and therefore had no contractual entitlement to the higher pay. Both claims were struck out as having no reasonable prospect of success and were dismissed.