An 18 year old female office worker has been awarded 26 weeks’ loss of pay as well as a sum of £5,000 for injury to feelings. An employment tribunal which found that the claimant had been discriminated against by her employer in breach of the Employment Equality Age (Regulations) 2006.

Ms Wilkinson, who had taken over the job from her (presumably much older) aunt, was dismissed summarily on the grounds that she was “too young for the job”. She was required to leave the premises immediately and was not informed of any right of appeal. The employer (an engineering company) failed to deal with a pre-action letter. The company were ordered to pay a 50% uplift on total compensation as a consequence of their failure to follow the statutory dispute resolution procedures (Employment Act 2002).

Age discrimination is stereotypically thought of as affecting employees at the opposite end of the employment age scale. This case proves that the Regulations work both ways!

Employers should be aware that there are no qualifying time periods for discrimination claims. This contrasts with the 12 month qualifying period required before a claim for unfair dismissal might be advanced and two years in the case of redundancy.