The claimant was a disabled person for the purposes of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. The two issues arising were whether the respondent had been in breach of its obligation to provide reasonable adjustments under the 1995 Act and whether the respondent had victimised the claimant contrary to the same legislation. The claimant had originally been employed in an in-house security department but then transferred positions and eventually went off on sick leave after claiming his new position was not suitable. Prior to the index claim the claimant had a number of unsuccessful tribunal claims. 

The tribunal were unequivocal that the respondent had made all reasonable adjustments for the claimant. They stressed that the duty on employers was ‘not required to seek or to achieve absolute perfection’. The respondent impressively pointed to a number of clear steps made to facilitate the claimant including allowing him to come into work early to facilitate him finding a suitable parking space, allowing him to take regular breaks and move about as he wished. In relation to the victimisation claim, the ultimate insurmountable hurdle for the claimant was that he could not demonstrate that he was treated less favourably in the circumstances than a comparable employee. The burden of proof rests with the employee to initially prove facts upon which the tribunal could reasonably infer victimisation, which he was unable to do. In total, the claimant made a number of weak allegations including a failure to allow him flexi-time when the post itself simply did not allow for such an arrangement. The tribunal completely rejected any allegation of victimisation as the claimant failed to demonstrate a prima facie case.


Practical lessons from this decision:

For employers, the ability to refer to specific examples of reasonable adjustments being made is a strong defence to any claim. In the present case, the claimant's claim that he was ‘humiliated’ by the adjustments was ill-received by the tribunal who focused on the conduct of the employer in acting reasonably throughout. Interestingly, in finding that the respondent consistently acted reasonably the tribunal cited the fact that on a number of occasions the claimant was spared disciplinary action for a number of possible incidents. This added weight to the fact that the respondent made ‘extraordinary efforts to accommodate the claimant’ and strengthened its contentions.

As ever, full case decisions for NI cases are available on the OITFET website:
http://www.employmenttribunalsni.co.uk/