Tarlun Ahari successfully defends a disability discrimination claim
Tarlun Ahari successfully represented a mainstream education provider in defending claims of unfair dismissal and unfavourable treatment because of something arising in consequence of disability (section 15 Equality Act 2010).
Facts
C was employed by R as a facilities manager. She relied on the disability of Epilepsy, which was accepted. R did not, however, accept that as a result of her Epilepsy, C experienced impaired judgment and exhibited frustration to stressful situations. C claimed that as a consequence of her disability and medication, which caused severe migraines, vomiting and more frequent epilepsy events, she had stabbed a knife into the whiteboard of her office.
The Tribunal found that the stabbing of the knife did not arise in consequence of C’s disability. The Tribunal accepted that C was experiencing significant and very unpleasant symptoms and side effects. It accepted that these arose from C’s disability, as part of a chain of causation. However, none of those side effects in themselves explained C’s action of stabbing a knife into the whiteboard. Further, C had left the knife in the whiteboard all day. In the absence of clear medical evidence that C was in such a state of confusion throughout the day, it appeared that at no point did she reflect on her actions or take steps to report the knife. In fact, she worked, without any apparent issue, throughout the rest of the day.
The Tribunal found that there was something else that caused C to act in the way she did. They did not speculate as what that ‘something else’ was. Although there was a correlation between C’s behaviour and her medication change, this did not equal causation. One of R’s witnesses described C punching the table leg when she was told her appeal had been refused and this, the Tribunal found, tended to demonstrate a propensity to react in an extreme way to difficult circumstances. For those reasons, the claim of discrimination under section 15 was dismissed.
In respect of the unfair dismissal, the Tribunal found that R reasonably believed that C was guilty of gross misconduct and that dismissal was within the range of reasonable responses. This was despite the fact that C had a clean record and had not brought the knife into school herself, but had found it outside and brought it in to prevent a pupil from finding it.
Due to the sensitive nature of this case, an Anonymisation Order was granted pursuant to rules 49(1) and (3)(b) of the Employment Tribunal Procedure Rules 2024. This applied to the Claimant, the Respondent and any named individuals from whom C’s or R’s identity might be inferred.
Testimonial from the client: “Ms Ahari represented us successfully in a complex disability discrimination case. She is a highly effective litigator, who additionally showed great empathy and professionalism in her cross examination. Her legal expertise made her a formidable advocate.”
