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Patefield v Belfast City Council [2001] IRLR 664
In this important decision the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal holds that employers who replace contract workers on maternity leave may be in breach of sex discrimination legislation.
The case concerned a woman who worked for a recruitment agency which supplied Belfast City Council with clerical staff. She worked for the council as a clerical worker from February 1995. When she became pregnant three years later she wrote to the council giving them formal notice that she would be taking maternity leave and that she intended to return to work.
At the end of her maternity leave Ms Patefield wrote to the council stating that she could return to work on 17 August 1998. However the council said that they had filled her position with a permanent employee and that they wanted to postpone her return to work until 7 September 1998.
In the event she was offered an alternative post which she did not accept on the grounds that it was materially inferior. She brought a claim for sex discrimination on the grounds that it is unlawful for a principal to discriminate against a woman who is a contract worker (Article 12 of the NI Sex Discrimination Order - Section 9 of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975).
The Court of Appeal found that when Ms Patefield went off work for maternity reasons there was a job available for a contract worker. By replacing her with a permanent employee when it knew that she wanted to return to her post after the birth of her child the council had subjected her to a detriment by effectively removing the possibility of her returning to her post. Had she not gone off on maternity leave they would have kept her on indefinitely and as such they had treated her less favourable on the grounds of her sex.
This decision shows employers cannot avoid their duties to women who go on maternity leave even though they are temporary agency workers.