The claimant was employed by the respondent as a production operator from January 2015 until September 2020.  He resigned in September 2020 giving one week’s notice.  The claimant brought a claim for disability discrimination as well as unfair dismissal.

The main points in the case related to the claimant’s claim of disability.  The Tribunal found that the evidence put forward by the claimant was ‘confused and inconclusive’.    From 2018 there were complaints about night sweats which continued.  It was suspected at one consultation that it may have been related to anxiety, but no diagnosis was made. This continued into 2020 but no diagnosis was ever made, and no specific mention of anxiety was ever made to Occupational Health.

In July 2020 the claimant applied for voluntary redundancy seeking time and rest to focus on his health.  In July 2020 there was a GP referral which outlined that there could be chronic fatigue syndrome, but the Tribunal noted that it was not a diagnosis and that there was more investigations that would have had to have taken place.  Furthermore, during cross-examination the claimant outlined that the pins and needles, dizziness and night sweats complained of did not prevent him from carrying out his day-to-day activities.

The claimant made reference to a number of various incidents.  The Tribunal examined these in detail but found that they were either without merit or did not criticise the respondent in its action.  For example, the claimant alleged that the respondent had asked the employees to ‘dig deep’ and whilst the respondent stated that such language was not used the Tribunal said it was unsurprising that the respondent would want its employees to work hard.  There were also allegations about the manner in which particular senior staff members had spoken to the claimant yet in observing the evidence of these staff members the Tribunal did not accept the claimant’s account.

In terms of the constructive unfair dismissal claim, it was dismissed on the basis that the Tribunal could not find anything which would have repudiated the contract. When the Claimant did resign he was on sick leave at that point and his application for voluntary redundancy was pending.   As a result, the respondent did nothing which could be regarded as repudiating the contract. On the disability discrimination claim, the Tribunal outlined that it was for the claimant to prove that he had a disability.  Despite the evidence being confusing and inconclusive it was found that the claimant did have chronic fatigue even though it was only diagnosed after his employment had ceased.  There were no positive recommendations made by the doctors during his employment, yet they did say that the claimant wished to have lighter duties.  The respondent did put this into action by moving him to particular pieces of equipment.  Additionally, his absences relating to the chronic fatigue were discounted when it came to the redundancy process.  As a result of the steps that had been taken and the confusing nature of the claimant’s disability it was found that the respondent had put in place all reasonable adjustments required under the legislation.  Therefore, the claims were dismissed.

Practical Lessons

The approach of the claimant in this situation was seemingly to make as many allegations as possible about what may have happened during his employment with the hope that one would be successful.  However, it led to the Tribunal dealing with issues that were not issues at all.  Employers should be cognisant of the need to ensure that they are aware of disabilities and the ‘organic’ way they can arise rather than an employee positively declaring that they are disabled.  It may arise through awareness of particular issues such as the chronic fatigue in this case and the respondent acted appropriately by allowing for some adjustments to the claimant’s work.  This was of crucial importance in defending this claim.

NI Tribunal decisions are available on the OITFET website:
http://www.employmenttribunalsni.co.uk/