This was an appeal by R&R against the decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (“EAT”). It concerned the retirement provisions under the (now repealed) Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 (“the Regulations”).
The facts of the case are repeated in our EAT summary.
Decision
The Court of Appeal dismissed R&R’s appeal.
The Court of Appeal held that the words of para.2(1), when read with the interpretations section of the Regulations, required the employer to tell the employee that he had a right to make a request not to retire and, specifically, that that right was pursuant to para.5 of the Regulations.
The Court of Appeal disagreed with the EAT and held that there is no requirement for an employer to tell the employee in writing of the “essential requirements” for making a request to stay on. The Court of Appeal held that an employer simply needed to tell him that he had a right under para.5 and specifically refer to that paragraph. It was important for an employee to understand that employer was invoking a statutory procedure and not just writing to terminate the employment.
As R&R had failed to do this, the Court of Appeal upheld the EAT’s decision of unfair dismissal.
The judgment is available here.
R & R Plant (Peterborough) Ltd v Bailey [2012] EWCA Civ 410