Continuing discrimination

Case 5: The facts

After his employment with an NHS trust ended, Dr Ghosh brought a claim of race discrimination relating to a number of incidents that had occurred during his employment. He claimed that his employer's actions over that time amounted to a continuing act of discrimination.

An employment tribunal dismissed the claim, on the grounds that none of the individual acts amounted to race discrimination.

The ruling

The Employment Appeal Tribunal held that the tribunal had wrongly dismissed Ghosh's claim. In an allegation of continuing discrimination, it said, a tribunal must consider the acts as a whole and determine whether discrimination could be inferred by looking at the incidents together. The case was remitted to a different tribunal.

Ghosh v Williams and Trafford Healthcare NHS Trust UKEAT/0149&0150/05