Allison Bailey v Stonewall - Employment Appeal Tribunal hearing Thread 19

I see the number of observers is gradually ticking up.

I'm getting quite stressed about people in the lobby. Are you being admitted?

Do you have a link to the submission Karens

Hither and thither It was a bit early years of MTV for me!

I accidentally logged myself out and now I'm not waiting for the conference host to join again.

I'm enjoying when the camera moving hither and thither, to focus on Ben, and the Judge.

Is that automatic?

Lights and a bit of noise but not started yet.

The lights are back on and people are filing back into court.

I have had to read Bens submissions several times.

I think Ben is saying that the normal meaning of inducement within the EQA is that there has to be a plan in mind, an intended outcome, which would be hard to prove as it goes in to what someone might be thinking.

To cause something to happen does not require any plan known or otherwise.

So Ben is saying that the ET Judge narrowed the meaning of S111 beyond what the Act was intended for, thus letting SW off the hook, which is an incorrect approach in law.

I think he has three other approaches as well….

My head hurts!!!

Hopefully the final judgement will clarify this.

The quote from Alison as above makes the reason for the Appeal clear.

Pretty important as Alison has said this Will if she wins put a full stop to SW and others sneaking around causing people to be harassed and sacked then standing back “nowt to do with me”

Allison tweeted this a couple of days ago:

'The Employment Tribunal agreed at paragraph 368 of its judgment that it was at least “certainly one reading” of these words to consider them as a threat from Stonewall – if chambers didn’t get rid of me, Stonewall would end its relationship with Garden Court. The Tribunal also described Stonewall’s alternative explanation as “implausible”.

The Tribunal also concluded at paragraph 377 that, but for the Stonewall complaint, I would not have been discriminated against by Garden Court in its decision to uphold complaints against me: in fact, when Stonewall sent in its complaint, I had (although I did not know it at the time) already been investigated, and the outcome of that investigation was that no further action should be taken against me. But, upon receiving Stonewall’s complaint, Garden Court abandoned this conclusion, extended its investigation, and went on to conclude against me.

My case has always been that Stonewall’s action was unlawful under s.111 EqA 2010, because it constituted Stonewall “instructing, causing or inducing” Garden Court’s unlawful discrimination against me. But although the tribunal upheld my claims against Garden Court Chambers for those acts of discrimination, it did not uphold the claims against Stonewall under s.111.

We say this was an error of law: the employment tribunal made the finding (at para 377) that, but for Stonewall’s complaint, the discriminatory investigation outcome would never have been reached. We say therefore that the Tribunal ought to have concluded that Stonewall induced, caused or influenced Garden Court’s unlawful conduct, thus establishing unlawful conduct on the part of Stonewall by making its complaint. This is the heart of the appeal to be heard this week.'

https://twitter.com/BluskyeAllison/status/1789741069007036631

Ooof. I wish I still had all of the brains cells middle age is robbing me of.

Thank you for the explanations. I've copied a bit of TT; please can someone explain this section a bit more? I think it follows the great explanations above, I'm interested to understand it further.

My employment law is sketchy. If the EAT find in AB's favour, does the case get bounced back to employment tribunal?

Ignore appalling English! Hopefully you get my drift.

I heard that there was enough evidence in the tribunal's writing to show that Stonewall had caused Allison to be discriminated against, even thought they didn't conclude this in the findings ,and that Ben is using this and defining the definitions of the terms to prove this is so.

It's quite eery in the room with all the lights off. I have Radio 2 on - feels very subversive even though I'm muted.

Well explained Hoch

Think a point was made that the tribunal states that the Stonewall complaint didn't amount to either, but the judgement didn't say how the tribunal had come to that decision

Lots of discussion on what causing and inducing actually mean.

Ben arguing that Stonewall don't have to explicitly state what outcome they want, and GCC follow that, for it to be causation/inducement. More nuanced than carrot and stick.

That's what I took away from it, though my attention span was rather lacking.

It seems to me and IANAL that Ben is going through the law and case law about what is needed to show that a third party has induced or caused someone to discriminate. Do they have to have intended for the person to have been discriminated against and do they have to have intended for the discriminator to have discriminated against the person in the same way as they wanted them to or is the fact that they wanted them to take some action on the basis of their protected characteristic enough even though the action they wanted was different.

There's been discussion about whether the intervention needs to cause the action and the meaning of various terms as earlier versions of the Act use different terms and it seems like different protected characteristics require slightly different actions - procure vs induce vs cause etc.

That's what I've understood anyway.

I don't want to take any chances with it, so, I'll do likewise.

Can anyone translate the second part of this morning for those of us whose first language isn't legalese?

Was Ben saying that the original tribunal didn't fully appreciate that Stonewall caused the shit show that happened even if they didn't actually make explicit threats as to the diversity programme signed up to for thing or what exactly stonewall would do if Allison wasn't sufficiently tarred and feathered?

I'm staying logged on just in case. They've locked the room and everyone has left.

I just asked myself the same question.

Are we supposed to stay logged on during the break? I'm wary of logging off as I have horrid memories of previous hearings with grumpy court clerks not re-admitting observers if you weren't able to join at the specified time.