Editorial
A recent case before the UK’s Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) illustrates once again just how even very senior judicial professionals can get trapped by sloppy interpretations of legal terminology — drawing literal conclusions from limited figurative concepts.
Mr Justice Underhill, President of the EAT, threw out an appeal last month from a firm of solicitors who were challenging whether a limited company with a single shareholder and Director could sue them for age discrimination. He agreed with a lower tribunal that they could do so, citing the Interpretation Act 1978, which states that the word ‘person’, when used in legislation, ‘includes a body of persons corporate or incorporate’ unless the contrary intention appears. He did not question the use of the phrase ‘body of persons’ in respect to a one-person company nor fully consider the logic of including corporate bodies in the category of legal ‘persons’ who may bring a claim of discrimination.
A limited figurative concept is one which only applies in certain contexts and where the object that is used by way of comparison only shares certain specific characteristics with it. Therefore, a corporation may be regarded as having some things in common with an individual living human being — as it can be party to contracts and be treated as independent and accountable. But that is where the likeness ends.
You cannot be tried for murder because you liquidate a company or accused of false imprisonment if a company is left trapped in a dormant state. In any case, if a company shared all characteristics in common with a natural person then it would, in itself and as an entity, have to be either formed for the same period as allowed under child labour laws or be very old to claim age discrimination. The whole thing requires a perverse logic to come to the same conclusion as the EAT and as the TUPE Service Provision Change case reported in this week’s newswire illustrates the EAT is also only too ready to write in legal provisions where the law remains silent.