Somerville v Gell Retail Limited [2013]
Decision Number: Legal Body: Workplace Relations Commission
Published on: 29/05/2013
Issues Covered:
Article Authors The main content of this article was provided by the following authors.
Bernadette Treanor Founder
Bernadette Treanor Founder
Bernadette treanor

Bernadette Treanor is the founder of Beo Solutions, an employee relations and engagement consultancy which provides best practice expert leadership and impartial organisational support in the areas of employee relations, employee engagement, workplace investigations, disciplinary hearings and mediation. 

An expert in equality law, Bernadette provides Equality reviews and assessments, including assessments of cases being prepared. She is a Committee member of the Employment Law Association of Ireland (ELAI) and CIPD member. She reviews equality Decisions issued by the Equality Tribunal for Legal Island monthly and chairs its annual Equality Conference aimed at equality practitioners.

Background

This is yet another pregnancy related dismissal claim upheld, indicating how high the barrier is set to show that a dismissal while pregnant is not related to the pregnancy.

In this Decision the Equality Officer refers to previous case law from the CJEU (Webb v Emo Air cargo, Brown v Rentokill, and Dekker) and quoted the Labour Court EDA 095: “only the most exceptional circumstances not connected with the condition of pregnancy allow a woman to be dismissed while pregnant.  It is equally well settled law that the dismissal of a pregnant woman (which can obviously only apply to a woman) raises a prima facie case of discrimination on the gender ground.  Once

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Disclaimer The information in this article is provided as part of Legal Island's Employment Law Hub. We regret we are not able to respond to requests for specific legal or HR queries and recommend that professional advice is obtained before relying on information supplied anywhere within this article. This article is correct at 29/05/2013
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