Hawkins v ATEX Group Ltd (and others)

Diya Sen Gupta successfully represented the Respondents before the ET and EAT in this unusual claim involving an allegation of marital status discrimination contrary to section 3 of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.

The claimant alleged that she had been dismissed because she was married to the CEO, who had also been dismissed. The Respondents’ case was that she (and her daughter) had been dismissed because their employment had been unauthorised as it was in breach of an instruction to her husband not to employ any member of his family in an executive or professional capacity.

The Respondents successfully obtained an order striking out the claim at a Pre-Hearing Review on the basis that there was no reasonable prospect of her succeeding in her claim that she was dismissed because the status of her relationship with the CEO was one of marriage and that the substance of her claim was that she was dismissed because of the identity of the person she was married to.

This decision was upheld by the President of the EAT on appeal. Underhill P held that the purpose of section 3 of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (now in section 8 of the Equality Act 2010) was the protection of the status of marriage and that the question is not whether the claimant suffered the treatment in question because she was married to a particular man, but whether she suffered it because she was married to that man.

Diya was instructed by Mishcon de Reya.