Continuing discrimination

Case 7: The facts

Dr Qing-Ping Ma, who is of Chinese ethnic origin, alleged that his employer discriminated against him throughout his employment in a number of ways; these included failing to provide him with adequate support staff, assigning him inappropriate work, giving him appraisals that did not reflect his performance, giving him lower pay rises and failing to promote him.

A tribunal dismissed his claims as being out of time, and said the behaviour complained of was not a continuing state of affairs which pointed to discrimination running over the whole of the period.

The ruling

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) said the tribunal had not considered the issue properly. Ma had given examples of occasions when he felt less favourably treated on grounds of his ethnic origin, but the tribunal had wrongly treated these as separate incidents.

In deciding whether there was continuing discrimination, the EAT said, the tribunal had to look at the whole picture; if there was no other explanation for the treatment, it could conclude that the only link was Ma’s ethnic origin and that this was the reason for the treatment.

Qing-Ping Ma v Merck Sharp & Dohme Ltd EAT/0448/06