The claimant was an occupational health nurse and after a period of retraining became re-graded as a health and safety inspector in December 2009.  She became ill through anxiety and depression and was eventually given a phased return.

The claimant was given an informal warning in relation to allegations that she carried out private work amounting to a conflict of interest with her employment, defamatory comments and behaviour in the workplace amounting to misconduct. An investigation was to be carried out and the claimant was suspended from 11th November 2011. The suspension actually lasted until 4th June 2013 when the claimant medically retired, due to a combination of factors all attributable to the claimant.

The respondent’s disciplinary policy required periods of suspension to be reviewed and not to become ‘unnecessarily protracted’; however this was clearly not done. This was claimed to be an act of disability discrimination under the DDA 1995.

The tribunal rejected this claim as it could not say that a person who did not have the particular disability of the claimant would not have been suspended in circumstances similar to the circumstances. Ten other claims were also dismissed after a hearing lasting some 15 days over a seven month period.

Practical Lessons

Whilst the disability discrimination claim was rejected, the tribunal was not impressed by the respondent’s protracted suspension of the claimant. It noted that it should have taken a more robust approach in bringing the investigatory and disciplinary processes to a conclusion, despite its failure to do so being by reason of accommodations made for the benefit of the claimant and not because it was treating her less favourably.

However, the statutory code of practice issued by LRA says very little specifically about suspension apart from that it ‘should be reviewed frequently to ensure it is not unnecessarily protracted’ (para 11). Whilst in this case the period of suspension of 1 year and 7 months was not reviewed even once, employers are much safer conducting periodic reviews of an employee’s suspension and making it clear that that any action taken is neither considered as disciplinary action nor an indication of guilt.

This case review was written by John Taggart BL. NI Tribunal decisions are available on the OITFET website:

http://www.employmenttribunalsni.co.uk/