Dismissing someone because she is pregnant is discrimination in itself, no comparison needed.
“Dismissal because of pregnancy is discrimination in itself; no comparatorA comparator is someone in a similar situation to you but without your protected characteristic (for example, a different race, sex, or disability status), used to judge whether you were treated worse... is required.”
If you're dismissed because you're pregnant, that's discrimination in itself, you don't need to compare your treatment to anyone else's.
- You do not need to show that someone else, such as a man, would have been treated better. Pregnancy and maternity discrimination stands on its own.
- An employer's practical or business reason for a decision does not excuse it if pregnancy is the real cause.
- This protection now sits in the Equality Act 2010The main piece of legislation protecting employees from discrimination at work. It covers nine protected characteristics including age, disability, sex, race, and religion, and makes it unlawful for a..., section 18, which treats pregnancy and maternity discrimination as its own protected characteristicOne of the nine characteristics listed in the Equality Act 2010 against which it is unlawful to discriminate. They include age, disability, race, sex, religion or belief, and sexual orientation. If yo....
The situation
Ms Webb was hired by EMO Air Cargo to cover for an employee who was about to go on maternity leave, with the expectation that she would stay on in the role once that employee returned. Two weeks after she started work, Ms Webb discovered that she was pregnant too, due to give birth at around the same time as the employee she had been hired to cover. Once her employer found out, he dismissed her, telling her that he had no alternative because her job existed specifically to cover the other employee's maternity leave.
What the court found
The House of Lords held that dismissing Ms Webb because she was pregnant was direct sex discrimination. It made no difference that her employer had a genuine practical reason for wanting someone in the role throughout the other employee's maternity leave. The court confirmed that pregnancy discrimination does not need a comparator; you do not have to show that a man in a similar situation would have been treated better, because pregnancy itself has no male equivalent.
Webb v EMO Air Cargo (UK) Ltd (No 2). House of Lords. 1995.