Disability discrimination

New and updated

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Case round-up

  Our resident experts at Pinsents bring you a comprehensive update on all the latest decisions that could affect your organisation, and advice on what to do about them.

• Date:

  23 May 2003

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Disability discrimination: Cause of impairment irrelevant to whether disability exists at material time

  In Power v Panasonic UK Ltd the EAT holds that In deciding whether a complainant has a disability within the meaning of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, an employment tribunal should consider whether the disability alleged is one that falls within the meaning of the Act, or whether it is in fact an impairment which is excluded by reason of Regulations issued under the Act from being treated as such a disability.

• Date:

  15 February 2003

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Disability discrimination: Ongoing disciplinary proceedings does not suspend duty to make reasonable adjustments

  The fact that an employee was facing disciplinary proceedings which could have, and in fact did, result in her dismissal did not justify an employer's failure to make a reasonable adjustment under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, holds the EAT in HM Prison Service v Beart.

• Date:

  10 January 2003

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Contracts of employment: Dismissal for "good cause" terminates long-term sickness benefits

  An employee on long-term sick leave who failed to maintain communication with his employer regarding his continued absence, and who had not provided continuous medical certificates, was lawfully dismissed so as to terminate any entitlement to benefits under the employer's permanent health insurance scheme, the Court of Appeal holds in Briscoe v Lubrizol Ltd.

• Date:

  9 December 2002

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Mitigation of loss: Refusing re-employment offer was a failure to mitigate loss

  In Wilding v British Telecommunications plc, the Court of Appeal upholds a decision by an employment tribunal that, by refusing an offer of part-time re-employment, an employee who had been unfairly dismissed and discriminated against on the ground of his disability had thereby failed to mitigate his loss.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Case round up in brief

  This month's case round up in brief.

• Date:

  25 March 2002

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Disability discrimination: Failure to establish mental impairment

  In Morgan v Staffordshire University the EAT holds that an employment tribunal was entitled to find that an employee did not have a mental impairment within the meaning of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.

• Type:

  FAQs

  Is it unlawful for an employer to ask on an application form whether a candidate has a disability?

• Date:

  31 December 2001

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Ashton v Chief Constable of West Mercia Constabulary

  In Ashton v Chief Constable of West Mercia Constabulary [2001] ICR 67 EAT, the Employment Appeal Tribunal upheld an employment tribunal's decision that a male to female transsexual dismissed due to poor performance had not been discriminated against on grounds of sex, although the poor performance was linked to the side effects of medical treatment for gender reassignment. It also upheld a finding that the employee was not disabled within the meaning in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.

• Date:

  15 July 2001

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Disability discrimination: Putting rollers in hair and applying make-up are "normal day-to-day activities"

  In Ekpe v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, the EAT reverses an employment tribunal's decision that a woman with an impairment of her right hand, constituting a weakness of some of the muscles required for its full function, did not have a disability for the purposes of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.