Disability discrimination: Individual with asymptomatic cancer "disabled" when treatment caused impairment

Key points

• In Kirton v Tetrosyl Ltd [2003] IRLR 353, the Court of Appeal holds that an individual suffering from urinary incontinence - not of itself a substantive "impairment" within the meaning of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 - is nonetheless disabled under that Act where the incontinence was caused by surgery conducted as a standard treatment for the progressive condition of asymptomatic cancer.
• There was sufficient evidence, on the particular facts, to show that the complainant's symptoms of urinary incontinence would not have developed but for the surgery which the cancer made necessary.