In this article, Chris Dobbs looks at a recent case where a claimant failed in her claim that her views on covid amounted to a belief.
Chris details the ins and outs of the case and provides advice for employers going forward.
A bit of a recap
Here I provide a bit of a recap of health & safety laws, their use over the pandemic and the relationship between covid and dismissal…
Health and Safety, Covid and Employment
During the course of the pandemic, many workers have relied on health and safety laws or government guidance to encourage their employers to adapt the workplace or implement working from home measures.
In August last year, I wrote about the previously rarely-used sections 44 and 100 of the Employment Rights Act and their role in staff being protected from dismissal due to covid precautions.
Dismissals relating to Covid
Since then, various cases have been decided on whether or not dismissals in connection with covid were fair and lawful.
Tribunals have gone both ways so far in these decisions any much depends on the particular circumstances.
We’re going to cover these circumstances in detail in our upcoming February Forum. If you’re interested in this forum, you can learn more here.
A novel case
In one currently novel case heard in Manchester November 2021, an unnamed Claimant failed in her claim that her covid views amounted to beliefs under section 10 of the Equality Act.
Both parties were anonymised in the case of X v Y with the Claimant representing herself at the preliminary hearing to determine the matter of her belief.
This case is going to be the focus of this article.
Click here to read the full article.