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Disability discrimination
This week's case round-up from Eversheds, covering Sunday working amounting to religious discrimination.
In Nottinghamshire County Council v Meikle [2004] IRLR 703 CA, the Court of Appeal held that putting an employee who was off sick for a disability-related reason on to half pay after a period of full pay was unjustified less favourable treatment where the employer had failed to make reasonable adjustments, which, had they been made, would have resulted in the employee's returning to work before she became liable to have her sick pay reduced.
In Archibald v Fife Council, the House of Lords holds that an employment tribunal misconstrued the scope of the employer's duty to take reasonable steps to prevent any of its arrangements from placing a disabled employee at a substantial disadvantage in comparison with people who are not disabled.
Voluntary workers were not "employees" as defined in s.68 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, holds the EAT in South East Sheffield Citizens Advice Bureau v Grayson (17 November 2003).
This week's case round-up from Eversheds, covering dismissals relating to common law duties.
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In Murray v Newham Citizens Advice Bureau Ltd, the EAT holds that anemployment tribunal which found that a complainant who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, was disabled for the purposes of the DDA, had a tendency to violence as a direct result of that condition, and who had been treated less favourably on the grounds of that propensity to violence, had erred in further holding that he had not been discriminated against on the grounds of his disability.
In Mid Staffordshire General Hospitals NHS Trust v Cambridge [2003] IRLR 566 EAT, the EAT held that an employer's failure to carry out an assessment to enable a decision to be reached as to what steps would be reasonable to prevent a disabled employee or prospective employee from being at a disadvantage amounts to a breach of the duty of reasonable adjustment under section 6 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.
In Relaxion Group plc v Rhys-Harper and related cases the House of Lords interprets anti-discrimination legislation to mean that employees should be protected against certain acts of post-termination discrimination by their employer.
In Kirton v Tetrosyl Ltd, 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.
Employment law cases: HR and legal information and guidance relating to disability discrimination.