Parental leave cannot be taken in single days

The Court of Appeal, in the case of Rodway v South Central Trains Ltd, has confirmed that there is no right for an employee to take parental leave for just one day. In its judgment, handed down on 18th April 2005, the Court dismissed the employee’s appeal against the EAT’s finding that parental leave must be taken in periods of at least one week.

A Quick Summary: The right to parental leave is contained in the Maternity and Parental Leave Regulations 1999. These Regulations were made under the Employment Rights Act 1996, as amended by the Employment Relations Act 1999. The Maternity and Parental Leave Regulations came into force on 15 December 1999.

Both mothers and fathers, whether they are the natural or adoptive parents, can qualify for parental leave. Employees who want to take parental leave must have worked for their employer continuously for a year by the time they want to take the leave. Each parent can take 13 weeks’ parental leave for each child. This means that mothers and fathers if they have twins or adopt more than one child at a time, can both take 13 weeks’ leave for each child.

The purpose of parental leave is to care for a child. This means looking after the welfare of a child and can include making arrangements for the good of a child. Caring for a child does not necessarily mean being with the child 24 hours a day. The leave might be taken simply to enable the parents to spend more time with young children. Parents can take parental leave up to the child’s fifth birthday.

As this new case makes clear, such leave can’t be taken in single days. The employee had asked to take a single day off to care for his son. The request was refused and the employee took the day off anyway. He later received a formal warning and complained to an Employment Tribunal that he had suffered a ‘detriment’ under S.47C of the Employment Rights Act 1996. This prohibits unfair treatment by the employer in relation to the employee’s rights to, among other things, parental leave under the Maternity and Parental Leave etc Regulations 1999. The Tribunal held that the employee had been entitled to take a day off but the EAT (the Employment Appeal Tribunal) held that the minimum he could have taken off in one go was a week. In dismissing the employee’s appeal against the EAT’s decision, the Court of Appeal agreed that the regulations provided for a minimum of 1 week’s leave at a time. The Court of Appeal, therefore, said that the employer was right to take disciplinary action for the employee’s absence and that the employee hadn’t suffered a detriment.