Disability discrimination

New and updated

• Date:

  1 December 2000

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Disability discrimination: Travel by normal means of transport is "normal day-to-day activity"

  In Abadeh v British Telecommunications plc the EAT holds that, for the purposes of the Disability Discrimination Act, the question of what constitutes a "normal day-to-day activity" must be addressed without regard to whether or not the activity is normal to the particular applicant.

• Date:

  1 December 1999

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Disability discrimination: End user of contract worker's services was "principal"

  Where there is an unbroken chain of contracts between an individual and an end user, the end user should be regarded as the "principal" within the meaning of the contract-worker provisions contained in s.12 of the Disability Discrimination Act, the EAT holds in MHC Consulting Services Ltd v Tansell and others.

• Date:

  1 November 1999

  Type:

  Employment law cases

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

  In Vicary v British Telecommunications plc, 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.

• Date:

  15 September 1999

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Disability discrimination: Attested reactive depression was a disability

  An employee diagnosed as suffering from reactive depression was a "disabled person" within the meaning of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, holds the EAT in Kapadia v London Borough of Lambeth.

• Date:

  1 November 1998

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Disability discrimination: No discrimination against epileptic job applicant

  An employer could not reasonably have been expected to know, without being told by a job applicant suffering from photosensitive epilepsy, that the fluorescent lighting in the room in which she was interviewed might disadvantage her, holds the EAT in Ridout v T C Group.

• Date:

  1 June 1998

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Disability disagreement: Sequence of steps for dealing with allegation of "reasonable adjustment" discrimination

  In Morse v Wiltshire County Council, the EAT holds that an industrial tribunal must go through a number of sequential steps when dealing with an employer's alleged failure to comply with a duty to make reasonable adjustments in relation to the disabled person concerned.

• Date:

  31 December 1997

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Poulton v Walton

  In Poulton v Walton [1998] ET/1805515/97, the employment tribunal found that an employee with diabetes controlled by diet was disabled. Diet was a 'measure' taken to treat the diabetes so the effect of following the diet had to be ignored in considering whether he was disabled. He was not discriminated against in respect of his disability since the dismissal was not for a reason related to his disability.