Allison Bailey Appeal

Remember that Allison Bailey can request an appeal, and the EAT will carry out an initial review to decide whether in their view the appeal can proceed, but they might decide against permitting this.

The new (dull and unoriginal) refrain on Twitter from the expected quarters is a faux-innocent "why is she appealing when she won her case against Stonewall?"

I hope she hasn't been goaded into this decision by twitter trolls selectively reading the previous judgment.

I wonder if there is some evidence from an FOI either at GCC or another Organisation.

I also thought it was masterful timing. I've done it myself in the past with personal legal admin and it's very satisfying.

I was surprised SW got away with it tbh at the first ET. I think AB has a winnable case here.

What a brave and wonderful woman she is - to face all that again.

My recollection was that Stonewall agreed that their advice went 'beyond the law' so maybe that is what is being contested. Stonewall might have to change their advice.

Apparently it’s very rare for them to award costs in employment tribunals.

I know Allison got some damages from GCC but what happened about costs? Since she succeeded in part, did they have to cover any of her side?

There were so many threads in the original case that it was very hard to determine which actions contributed to what detriment. The appeal should be much more straightforward. Even if it's not successful, it will be great to see Stonewall out in the open having to justify their beliefs and actions. I'm sure they won't be too keen to have Kirrin Medcalf (complete with entourage) representing them on the stand again.

"We will give you advice on certain PCs, but you don't have to take it." Fair enough.

"We will give you advice on certain PCs, and you don't have to take it, but if you do we'll promote your company by saying how good a place it is for people with those PCs to work in." Sounds fair, until...

"We will give you incorrect advice on certain PCs, and you don't have to take it, because it's up to you to check that self-professed experts are presenting the law accurately, but if you do we'll promote your company by saying how good a place it is for people with those PCs to work in-- despite the fact that our advice not only disadvantage people with other PCs, but also disadvantages most of the people with the PCs we are pretending to support--."

Not so fair and reasonable, is it?

I'm sure that "inducement to discriminate" is common. Bearing in mind that an individual can be personally liable for discrimination. So if you are interviewing candidates for a job and your boss tells you to mark down any black applicants / female applicants, that is unlawful inducement to discriminate, whether you obey the instruction or not.

Simple indirect inducement would be sufficient to hit Stonewall, even if GCC had been found to have not discriminated.

Like that letter/email which had the 'nice little business you've go here, shame if...' flavour?

Personally, whatever the result, seeing Stonewall's shocking homophobia splashed across MSM, can only be a benefit imo.

Yes it's worth reading Maya's EAT judgment or reading the MN threads discussing it at the time the case was being heard to see how it works in the EAT.

And that reminds me, nauticant, that by it heading to the Employment Appeal Tribunal, it will end up being binding in a way the first judgment wasn't, like Forstater.

I don't know how much precedent (binding or not) there is about the "inducement" part of the Equality Act. I can't imagine it's come up that often. Before Stonewall started doing what it's doing now, how often have there been groups trying to persuade others to discriminate?

If I understand correctly, at the Employment Appeal Tribunal, there will be re-examination of the case presented at the lower tribunal but it won't involve bringing witnesses back in to re-do things. There are significant hurdles to getting in new evidence. It will be much drier proceedings. It won't be like the Maya case because although that had EAT proceedings, the fireworks only happened because the case went back down to the lower tribunal because they hadn't even heard the substantive case the first time.

Seems like it would be hard to prove they had a direct impact even though we all know they did.

That doesn't need to be proven, according to the wording above. The inducement can be indirect, and it doesn't even matter whether the person being induced ended up discriminating. (Although in this case GCC has already found to discriminate).

Simple indirect inducement would be sufficient to hit Stonewall, even if GCC had been found to have not discriminated.

Seems like it would be hard to prove they had a direct impact even though we all know they did. But I'm sure Allison wouldn't be embarking on this unless she felt there was a strong case. I don't know much about law - can you introduce new evidence at an appeal or is it just re-examing what was presented before? Just wondered if there is something new that would make a difference.

I still think it will be a hard one to win as they are a degree removed from the treatment she received from people at GCC, but maybe the focus will make their influence clearer.

Perhaps, making her sure first victory was secure before, possibly, starting a fight on a second front.

I'm assuming if she does win against sw, it'll also be significant for all the clones and the groups embedded within organisations?

I got the impression that the last thing GCC was going to do was appeal. They just looked at every stage as if they wanted it over and done with as quickly as possible.

It did seem to be a fairly obvious contravention to my untrained eye so I was a little surprised at the outcome. Maybe the judge was so disorientated by the support dog and eye opening behaviour of Stonewall’s witnesses that she didn’t consider it properly?

Did Allison avoid announcing this till the last minute till it was too late for GCC to appeal?

I feel like this might have somehow precipitated GCC to get re-involved, if they’d got wind of it. I don’t know why I think that, though.

I doubt Allison will have embarked on this course without careful thought or further legal advice.

I see merit in it based on the points Necessay Scene highlighted.

I also see merit given how whenever Stonewall or trans ideologists have to defend themselves publicly they end up looking thoroughly unhinged.

I'm up for some gardening before the winter sets in.

I think it will be interesting to see if Stonewall can legally be held accountable.

Because if they CAN, well, what a kettle of fish that could open. Just how many corporates will actually take notice of Stonewall’s advice after that?

It would really open up the stonewalling efforts thus far, wouldn’t it? It would show corporates just how far down a garden path of misrepresented law they were willing to go for pats on the head.

It would throw a laser into lobbying groups and their efforts generally.