The Employment Appeal Tribunal has confirmed that a proposed adjustment will constitute a "reasonable adjustment" within the meaning of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 only where it prevents the provision, criterion or practice that places the disabled person at a substantial disadvantage.
Claire Benson is managing associate and Helen Corbett, Sinead Jones, Helen Ward and Tori O'Neil are associates at Addleshaw Goddard LLP. They round up the latest rulings.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that it was not a reasonable adjustment for the subjective redundancy selection criteria by which a disabled employee who was at risk of redundancy was judged to be removed from the process.
In X v Mid Sussex Citizens’ Advice Bureau and others [2011] EWCA Civ 28 CA, the Court of Appeal held that a volunteer at a Citizens’ Advice Bureau was not an employee for the purposes of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and could not therefore claim disability discrimination when she was asked to stop her voluntary work.
In this case, the employer's unjustified assumptions about a diabetic employee led to a £25,555 compensation award to her for disability discrimination.
The employment tribunal in this case made the unusual finding that a job applicant was subjected to harassment when he was accidentally sent an internal email that he felt was dismissive of his application. In addition, the decision provides a good example of a very simple reasonable adjustment that the employer should have made: giving the applicant a few extra minutes to prepare for his interview.