Mr M Taylor v AXA Insurance plc — 2022

Mr Taylor brought a direct age discrimination claim about AXA Insurance PLC's decision not to interview him or offer him the motor engineer role. The Tribunal found he was a genuine applicant, applying because he wanted the role and was not simply pursuing a claim, and it rejected the respondent's submission that he was a fishing claimant. The Tribunal therefore accepted that the refusal to progress his application amounted to less favourable treatment in the sense that it was a real rejection of his application, not a sham or insubstantial process.

The claim nevertheless failed because the Tribunal was not satisfied that the rejection was because of age. It found that Mr Hill, the hiring manager, did not know Mr Taylor's age when he reviewed the application and that age was not a factor in the decision not to shortlist him. The Tribunal accepted that the reasons for rejection were Mr Hill's mistaken view that Mr Taylor did not have a current ATA VDA certification or equivalent, his view that Mr Taylor's CV was weighted towards management experience and better suited to a senior role, his concern about the distance between Leicester and the Bolton or Haverhill offices, and his concern that the application might be a stop-gap.

The Tribunal was critical of AXA's recruitment process and noted that the job description and advert had not been properly updated, and that the claimant should have been given all four reasons for the decision when he first asked for feedback. It also found that the respondent's changing explanations understandably caused suspicion. However, it found no substance to the allegation of unconscious bias and accepted Mr Hill's evidence that the decision was based on the reasons he gave, not on the claimant being over 60.

The Tribunal dismissed the direct age discrimination claim in full and made no monetary award. It recorded that Mr Taylor had succeeded in an earlier unfair dismissal claim against a different employer, but that did not affect the outcome here. The judgment ends by observing that it would be useful for the respondent to review its recruitment statistics and policies relating to workers over 60.