Naomi Cunningham is published in DLA Briefings Vol 82

Naomi Cunningham has been published in the latest Discrimination Law Association Briefings paper dissecting the case of Omooba v Michael Garrett Associates (1) Leicester Theatre Trust Ltd (2).

Naomi Cunningham’s article titled ‘Bowing to the mob: a ‘business case’ defence?‘ was included in the DLA July briefing paper (Vol 82, 1088-1100 July 2024) following the recent EAT decision in Omooba v Michael Garrett Associates (1) Leicester Theatre Trust Ltd (2) [2024] EAT 30.

Actress Seyi Omooba accepted a role as a lesbian character. However, whenever historic homophobic comments surfaced on social media, her contract was terminated. Despite conceding that she would have resigned in any event, Ms Omooba brought employment tribunal claims of discrimination and harassment on grounds of religion and belief against both the theatre and the agent.

The judgment of the EAT seems to mean that employers, service-providers and others which bow to external pressure to discriminate will not be liable for discrimination if the reason they acted as they did was to protect their business interests, and not out of a discriminatory motivation of their own.

Naomi notes that “the question of less favourable treatment brought about by discriminatory pressure from third parties owing no duties of their own to the claimant has received surprisingly little attention from the courts before now.”

Read Naomi’s full case comment here.

Find out more

Naomi Cunningham has specialised in discrimination law, mainly but not exclusively in the employment context, throughout her career. In recent years, Naomi has developed a particular interest in the interaction between the Equality Act and the Gender Recognition Act, gender reassignment discrimination, the single-sex exceptions in the Equality Act, and the public sector equality duty. She gave evidence to the Women and Equalities Select Committee on reform of the GRA in February 2021, to the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament in June 2022, and again to the Women and Equalities Select Committee at Westminster in January 2023.

To find out more about Naomi, contact Nick Levett +44 (0)20 7427 4908 or Mark Gardner +44 (0)20 7427 4909.

External Publications, News 2 Jul, 2024