Disability discrimination: Tribunal wrongly approached question of whether or not complainant was disabled

In Vicary v British Telecommunications plc 23.8.99 EAT 1297/98, the EAT holds that an employment tribunal's conclusion that a woman did not have a disability for the purposes of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 was perverse. In the light of the tribunal's findings of fact that the woman was unable to carry out a number of what would obviously be regarded as normal day-to-day activities, it should inevitably have concluded that she was a disabled person within the meaning of the Act. The tribunal also misdirected itself in law as to what is meant by a "substantial" adverse effect on a person's ability to carry out such activities; the way the statutory guidance relating to the definition of disability is to be used; and the way it dealt with the expert evidence.