DAMAGES

Way and another v Crouch

EAT: Judge Birtles, Mr M Worthington and Mr G H Wright: 3 June 2005

The claimant was dismissed when she refused to resume a personal relationship with the managing director of the company for which she worked. An employment tribunal upheld her complaint of sex discrimination against both the managing director and the company and made an award of £40,866 compensation against them on a joint and several basis for the reason that the company had no board of directors and the managing director was the major shareholder answerable to no one else in the company.

The respondents appealed against the award.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal held:
In exercising the power in section 65 of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 to award compensation on a complaint of sex discrimination, whereby a respondent was required to pay the claimant compensation corresponding to damages in the county court and, under section 66(2), High Court remedies were obtainable, an employment tribunal was entitled as a matter of law to make an award on a joint and several basis. In almost all cases, however, such an award would be unnecessary, as the present practice of apportioning liability where appropriate between individual employees and employers worked well and did justice. Where a tribunal considered that a joint and several award was necessary, it was unlikely to be appropriate to make an award of 100% against each respondent, given the language of section 2(1) of the Civil Liability (Contribution) Act 1978, which specifically directed attention to the extent of a person's responsibility for the damage in question. Since the tribunal had failed to have regard to section 2(1) of the 1978 Act and to apportion responsibility between the respondents, the case would be remitted for reconsideration.

The appeal was allowed and the case remitted.

Appearances: Peter Wallington (Robbins Olivey, Woking) for the appellant respondents; Daniel Barnett (Warners, Sevenoaks) for the claimant.