Supreme Court to rule on forced retirement test case

Employment Law & HR update 16/01/2012

A test case this week could go against the Government's rules concerning forced retirement, and allow employers to justify retiring some staff when they reach a certain age.

The case of Leslie Seldon, who was retired by his City law firm, Clarkson, Wright & Jakes (CWJ), when he turned 65, is being heard by the Supreme Court. The case predates the new rules on forced retirement, brought in in April 2011, which have prevented companies from retiring 65-year-old workers purely based on their age.

If the court case goes in favour of CWJ, it will cause significant confusion to the age discrimination laws in the UK. The case has been working its way through the British judicial system for a number of years - Mr Seldon is now 70 - and in 2008 the appeals upheld that the law firm's intentions were legitimate, and that decision was backed up by the Court of Appeal in 2010.

One lawyer observing the case said that it could allow companies to implement their own forced retirement age and allow businesses to impose different retirement ages for different types of workers, based on their occupation.

Tom Flanagan told the Daily Telegraph newspaper, "If the law firm wins, that means it is possible for an employer to have its own default retirement age even though the state doesn't have one."   

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