Macarthys Ltd v. Smith [1980] 3 W.L.R. 929

Mr. M., the manager of the stockroom in one of the warehouses of the employers left his employment. After four months of the post remaining vacant the employee, Mrs. Smith, was appointed as the manageress of the stockroom. Her duties differed slightly from Mr. M's duties. She was paid about £10 less than he was. She argued that this breached the UK’s Equal Pay Act 1970. The Court of Appeal held that that Act does not allow comparisons with former colleagues; however, the ECJ held that EU law allows such comparison, reversing that Court of Appeal’s judgment. The ECJ decided that article 119 of the Treaty was directly applicable in the national courts of each country. It was submitted that under article 119 of the Treaty there was no requirement that the man and the woman should be employed contemporaneously at the same time and that, under that article, the woman was entitled to equal pay even though the man had left before she joined and the woman had taken his job afterwards.