The Employment Tribunal upheld two of the Claimant’s complaints of direct disability discrimination: the Respondent’s decision to dismiss him and the refusal by two of its founding directors to acknowledge his ill health.
The Respondent appealed the ET’s judgment on six grounds: (1) a failure properly to apply the statutory burden of proof by giving no or inadequate consideration to the non-discriminatory reason put forward by the Respondent for the dismissal and/or inadequacy of reasons for concluding that the Respondent had not discharged the burden once it had shifted; (2) a perverse (in the sense of irrational) conclusion about why one of its directors had altered an email that was disclosed to the Claimant, which was material to the drawing of adverse inferences; (3) a perverse (in the sense of irrational) conclusion about when the Claimant was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, which was relevant to fixing the Respondent with knowledge of the same; (4) inadequacy of reasons for its conclusion that the Respondent had knowledge of the Claimant’s diagnosis of type 1 diabetes before dismissing him; (5) a perverse (in the sense of unsupported by evidence) conclusion about the Respondent’s knowledge that type 1 diabetes was a disabling condition; and (6) a serious procedural irregularity, in the form of a breach of the rule in Browne v Dunn, in concluding that two of the Respondent’s directors had colluded to deny knowledge that the Claimant was unwell and did so in order to disguise the role that his diagnosis of type 1 diabetes had played in the decision to dismiss him.
All six grounds dismissed.
[2021] UKEAT 2019-000762
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 27 October 2021; Ref: scu.668245
