Disability Discrimination: Disability Related Discrimination
The Respondent was introducing a new shift pattern and seeking volunteers for redundancy. It was concerned whether by reason of the Claimant’s type 1 diabetes she was fit to work the new shift pattern and had commissioned a report on this question. The Claimant was unable to decide whether to accept the new shift pattern or to take voluntary redundancy until the report arrived. The Respondent became impatient at the Claimant’s inability to decide and dismissed her peremptorily without any process.
The Employment Tribunal erred in law in finding that the ‘unfavourable treatment’ was a mental process, whereas it should have found that the unfavourable treatment was the Claimant’s dismissal. This, however, it did not affect its fundamental reasoning, which was that the Claimant was dismissed for ‘something arising in consequence of her disability’.
The Employment Tribunal was entitled to find that the dismissal was because of ‘something arising in consequence of her disability’. Contrary to submissions on behalf of the Respondent, this phrase in section 15 of the Equality Act 2010 caused no special difficulty and did not require a restrictive interpretation. IPC Media Ltd v Millar [2013] IRLR 707 followed.
Richardson HHJ
[2015] UKEAT 0042 – 15 – 2205
Bailii
England and Wales
Employment
Updated: 03 January 2022; Ref: scu.551787
