Disability Discrimination – At a preliminary hearing an employment judge determined that the claimant was not a disabled person with respect to any of three impairments. He concluded that the independent medical evidence was insufficient to support the claimant’s case, and that the claimant’s own evidence could not be relied upon. He drew, in reaching his conclusions, on his interpretation of a phrase in one of the medical reports before him, as signifying that the claimant had deliberately exaggerated the account which he had given to that expert. That was an erroneous reading of that phrase in that report, and it undermined the judge’s reasoning in relation to all three impairments. Although the judge had accepted, in a reconsideration decision, that he had misinterpreted that phrase, the reasoning in the reconsideration decision was not sufficient to repair the fundamental error in the original decision.
The claimant’s appeal on the disability issue was therefore allowed and the matter was remitted for rehearing.
A further ground of appeal against the judge’s decision to refuse an amendment application failed. The judge’s reasoning in that regard remained sound, notwithstanding the error in his decision as to whether the claimant was, by reference to mental ill health, a disabled person.
Citations:
[2022] EAT 90
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Employment
Updated: 06 July 2022; Ref: scu.678575