“Having a zero tolerance approach to staff taking time off on short notice because of sickness and childcare responsibilities. This constituted a PCP within the meaning of section 19 of the Equality Act. The PCP applied to all staff, both men and women, but this PCP put women at a particular disadvantage because of the childcare disparity between me and women.”
“a history of inconsiderate and unprofessional behavior related to last minute changes and cancellations of shift work by the claimant”. [48] Ground 2 – Error in failing to consider requiring further and better particulars or an amendment to the claim 6. In his decision, EJ Nicholls identified difficulties arising from the ‘paucity of the chronology and the looseness of the wording’. It is submitted that the EJ should not have ordered A to pay a deposit based on the quality of the pleadings. As per Twist DX Ltd and others v Armes, in situations where the pleadings are defective, the appropriate approach is to order further and better particulars. 7. The decision in Twist DX also established that it is particularly important to adopt a flexible approach in situations where the parties are not represented by professional lawyers, as in the present case. 8. We accept that the PCP as worded in paragraph 18 of the amended PoCs [27] did not work on the facts. It is submitted that this could have been addressed by giving the Claimant an opportunity to amend her claim. The defect in the PoCs could have been corrected by amending the PCP to state: ‘The Respondent adopted a “three strikes and you’re out” approach to staff taking short notice leave’. 9. In summary, had the ET construed the pleadings as a whole, it would have understood the Claimant’s case to assert a causal link between her childcare related short notice leave and her dismissal. Had it allowed the Claimant to amend her PoCs as described in paragraph 22, the Claimant would likely succeed in showing that R had a practice of adopting a “three strikes and you’re out” approach to staff taking emergency leave, which would tend to disadvantage women on the basis of childcare disparity. Thus, had the ET followed the correct approach, it would not have concluded that the indirect sex discrimination claim had little reasonable prospect of success.” i) Paragraph 4 of the PoCs which asserted that the Claimant had requested leave on three occasions including once when her daughter had chicken pox ii) Paragraph 5 which asserted that the Claimant was told she was being dismissed because she did not give enough notice when she requested emergency leave iii) Paragraph 10 which referred to a request for emergency leave to care for child who had chickenpox iv) Paragraph 12 which refers to the Respondent telling the Claimant that she needed to look for “a mother job” v) The allegation in that the Respondent applied a zero-tolerance policy to short notice leave for child care reasons vi) Paragraph 22 of the PoCs which asserted that “one of the reasons or the principal reason for [the Claimant’s] dismissal was that she had taken time off to care for her child”