Blundell v the Governing Body of St Andrew’s Catholic Primary School
The law states that women are allowed to return to the same job after maternity leave. In the first case to consider what that means, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) said in, Blundell v the Governing Body of St Andrew’s Catholic Primary School, that a woman teacher had not been discriminated against when she was not allowed to return to teach the same class.
Basic facts
Mrs Blundell had been a teacher at the school since 1992 where it was normal practice to rotate teachers around classes every two years. As she was allocated a reception class in 2002, Mrs Blundell had expected to remain there for two years.
However, in 2003 she found out she was pregnant and the head teacher, Mrs Assid, asked her to take on floating duties for that year. She refused and the head reluctantly agreed to let her continue to teach the reception class
She then went off sick in December (which annoyed Mrs Assid) and had the baby in January 2004. She was not, however, consulted when the teaching allocations for the forthcoming year were sorted out during her maternity leave.
Just before she returned from leave, Mrs Assid asked her if she wanted a floating role or to teach year two. She chose the latter, but argued that she was entitled by law to return to the same job she had left in December 2003. In other words to her job as a reception class teacher.
Relevant law
Regulation 18 of the Maternity and Parental Leave (etc) Regulations 1999 state that a woman is entitled to return to “the job in which she was employed before her absence.”
However, if that is not reasonably practical for the employer, then she has the right to return “to another job which is both suitable for her and appropriate for her to do in the circumstances.”
“Job” is defined as “the nature of the work which she is employed to do in accordance with her contract and the capacity and place in which she is so employed."
Tribunal decision
The tribunal rejected her claims. It said that she was employed as a teacher at the school, not as a teacher of the reception class. It was up to Mrs Assid to decide which class she should teach and just because teachers could express a preference, that did not equate to an entitlement.
It agreed that Mrs Assid had been annoyed when told that Mrs Blundell was going off sick, but said it was not to her “detriment” (disadvantage) and had nothing to do with her exercising her maternity rights. It was simply because her absence would disrupt the children’s education, “a proper concern for the head teacher to have.”
EAT decision
The EAT agreed with the tribunal on all but one point, saying that the school had discriminated against Mrs Blundell when it did not ask for her preference as to allocation while she was on maternity leave.
In terms of the job to which she could return, it said that although it was important what the contract said, the law only refers to “the contractual provisions as to the nature of the job.” This meant that the job description (if it was contractual) also had to be taken into account as well as the terms and conditions of employment.
It also emphasised the fact that the regulations allowed for situations where it was not reasonably practical for employers to let a woman return to her previous job. The alternative job just had to be “both suitable for her and appropriate for her to do in the circumstances.”
When deciding whether the new job was suitable in comparison to the old one, it said that tribunals had to consider three factors – the nature of the work, the capacity (or function) of the job and the location. This gave the employer some latitude, which had been exercised in this case.