Today is World Mental Health Day and across social media today we have seen a variety of messages including from celebrities that “It’s ok not to be ok.” Talking about mental health on any day and not just World Mental Health Day is good because it raises awareness and helps to remove the long held […]
Tag: disability discrimination
Cancer in the workplace
According to research those who are diagnosed with cancer in the workplace is rising. According to Cancer Research UK each year almost 120,000 people of working age are diagnosed with cancer in the UK. Employees who have been diagnosed with cancer will get automatic protection from disability discrimination under the Equality Act 2010. Cancer is […]
Discrimination arising from disability
The Claimant brought a claim of discrimination arising from disability following his dismissal in the recent case of Risby v London Borough of Waltham Forest. The employee was a wheelchair user. His employer changed the venue for a course to one which was inaccessible to him as a wheelchair user. The employee lost his temper. […]
Making reasonable adjustments
Under the Equality Act 2010, an employer has a duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled employees. The issue in claims is often whether adjustments were reasonable once the issue of whether they are disabled within the meaning of the Act 2010. In the recent EAT case of G4S Cash Solutions (UK) Ltd v Powell […]
Obesity could be a disability
The awaited European Court of Justice decision has arrived. This has confirmed that EU law does not prohibit discrimination on the grounds of obesity but that conditions associated with the obesity could amount to a disability. The case set out a test where the long-term physical, mental or psychological impairments may hinder the full and […]
Reasonable adjustments
Following on from my earlier post on reasonable adjustments, there has been a recent EAT case concerning what is a reasonable adjustment in the workplace. In the case of Dyer v London Ambulance NHS Trust, the employee had a potentially life-threatening reaction to aerosols and perfume and answered 999 calls in a busy control room. […]
Reasonable adjustments
The EAT has held that the employer in Dominique v Toll Global Forwarding Ltd had failed in its duty to make reasonable adjustments by not adjusting the redundancy selection criteria where a disabled employee was placed at a substantial disadvantage even though the adjustment to the criteria would not have made a difference to the outcome. […]
Reasonable adjustments
It has long been established that an employer is under a duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled employers. The case of Coleman v Attridge Law held that those with direct discrimination claims do not themselves need to be disabled but can be associated with a disabled person. In that case it was Mrs Coleman’s […]
Is size a disability?
At present I would argue there is no such provision in the Equality Act 2010 for protection against discrimination on the grounds of size. It is not widely perceived as a disability giving rise to protection or obliging employers to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate their larger work force. A test case is currently before […]
Disability and long term sickness
It is possible in some circumstances with long term sickness to adopt the doctrine of frustration and say that the contract has been frustrated, thus bringing the employment contract to end without dismissing the employee in unfair dismissal terms. This is something I have done in practice on a few occasions for employers but it […]