Well we are nearly three weeks into the New Year so I thought it was about time that I got back to the blog.
I was up in the EAT last week doing a rule 3(10) hearing. The main issue was what was meant by the phrase ‘ordinarily resident’ under the Age and Disability Discrimination laws (see S 68(2A)(c) DDA 1995 & R 10(2)(c) EEAR 2006). This raised one of those rather interesting arguments as to the meaning of words.
There are no authorities directly on the meaning of these particular words in the context of discrimination. As you might expect the phrase is not a new one having found itself into other legislation over the years
There are a large number of tax authorities dealing with its meaning. I found the authority of The Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs v Lyle Dicker Grace [2008] EWHC 2708 (link below) provided a very good summary of the Common Law (see paragraph 3 of the Judgment).
It may come as some surprise to employment lawyers that someone can in fact be ‘ordinarily resident’ in more than one place at the same time and that the approach should not be to try and ascertain someone’s base/real home.
The use of the phrase ‘ordinarily resident’ is not universal in employment legislation with the territorial jurisdiction test varying from statute to statute. The conclusions of Serco have limited application when looking at disability/age discrimination jurisdiction issues. It is perhaps Serco that lead the Judge in this case to draw what was possibly the wrong conclusion from the evidence.
Anyway this case has been rated as Category A and so will be heard sooner rather than later. I suspect there should be a decision later this year shedding some light on what is meant by ‘ordinarily resident’.
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2008/2708.html
Peter D
I was up in the EAT last week doing a rule 3(10) hearing. The main issue was what was meant by the phrase ‘ordinarily resident’ under the Age and Disability Discrimination laws (see S 68(2A)(c) DDA 1995 & R 10(2)(c) EEAR 2006). This raised one of those rather interesting arguments as to the meaning of words.
There are no authorities directly on the meaning of these particular words in the context of discrimination. As you might expect the phrase is not a new one having found itself into other legislation over the years
There are a large number of tax authorities dealing with its meaning. I found the authority of The Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs v Lyle Dicker Grace [2008] EWHC 2708 (link below) provided a very good summary of the Common Law (see paragraph 3 of the Judgment).
It may come as some surprise to employment lawyers that someone can in fact be ‘ordinarily resident’ in more than one place at the same time and that the approach should not be to try and ascertain someone’s base/real home.
The use of the phrase ‘ordinarily resident’ is not universal in employment legislation with the territorial jurisdiction test varying from statute to statute. The conclusions of Serco have limited application when looking at disability/age discrimination jurisdiction issues. It is perhaps Serco that lead the Judge in this case to draw what was possibly the wrong conclusion from the evidence.
Anyway this case has been rated as Category A and so will be heard sooner rather than later. I suspect there should be a decision later this year shedding some light on what is meant by ‘ordinarily resident’.
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2008/2708.html
Peter D
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