Omooba v Global Artists: Court of Appeal dismisses bid to reopen religious belief discrimination case

The Court of Appeal has dismissed an application by actress Seyi Omooba to reopen a refused permission to appeal in her claims of religious belief discrimination and harassment against her former agent and the Leicester theatre that terminated her contracts in 2019.

Miss Omooba, who had been cast in the leading role of Celie in a stage production of The Color Purple at Leicester's Curve Theatre, lost the part days after a 2014 Facebook post expressing her religious views on homosexuality was resurfaced and widely shared on social media. Her former agent, Michael Garrett Associates, terminated its contract with her shortly afterwards. Employment tribunals and the Employment Appeal Tribunal rejected all of her claims, including direct discrimination, harassment, indirect discrimination and breach of contract, and costs were awarded against her.

Her application to reopen Bean LJ's July 2024 refusal of permission to appeal rested principally on the argument that the subsequent Court of Appeal decision in Higgs v Farmor's School [2025] EWCA Civ 109 was irreconcilable with that refusal. Lady Justice Falk, with whom Lord Justice Moylan and the Master of the Rolls agreed, rejected that contention entirely.

The two cases were materially distinguishable. In Higgs, the "reason why" question — whether the protected belief was an operative reason for the treatment — was not in dispute. The central issues were whether the posts constituted a manifestation of belief and whether the manner of expression could justify the dismissal. In Miss Omooba's case, the "reason why" remained the pivotal factual question throughout, and both the Employment Tribunal and the EAT had resolved it against her. The Employment Tribunal had found that neither respondent acted because of her beliefs: the Theatre was responding to a dysfunctional situation threatening the commercial viability of the production, and the Agent was acting to protect its business from what it considered a genuine commercial risk.

Lady Justice Falk took the opportunity to set out the governing principles on "reason why" in direct discrimination claims under section 13 of the Equality Act 2010. Drawing on Nagarajan v London Regional Transport [2000] 1 AC 501, Din v Carrington Viyella [1982] ICR 256, Amnesty International v Ahmed [2009] ICR 1450, and Fecitt v NHS Manchester [2012] ICR 372, the judgement reaffirms the established distinction between the reason for less favourable treatment and the motive underlying it. A benign motive does not negate discrimination where the reason for the treatment is itself the protected characteristic. Equally, the fact that a protected characteristic forms part of the factual context or the sequence of events leading to the treatment does not render it the operative reason. The determination of the reason why remains a question of fact for the Employment Tribunal, and the "separability approach" — drawing a distinction between the protected characteristic and genuinely separable conduct or circumstances — is a factual tool, not a rule of law.

The application also failed on the applicable threshold under CPR 52.30. The jurisdiction to reopen a final determination is confined to truly exceptional circumstances where the integrity of the earlier proceedings has been critically undermined and there is a powerful probability that a significant injustice has occurred. On each of the seven grounds pursued, Bean LJ's reasoning showed he had grappled with the issues, and no such probability arose.

One further point of note: Miss Omooba had made an application to the European Court of Human Rights following the domestic proceedings. In March 2025, a single judge declared it inadmissible on the ground that it disclosed no appearance of a violation of Convention rights — a factor bearing directly on the harassment grounds that had relied on alleged interference with rights under Articles 9 and 10.

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