In person For the v Respondent — 2020

At a preliminary hearing in Exeter on 2, 3 and 4 November 2020, Employment Judge Smail determined whether Mr Levins was a disabled person at all material times for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010. The respondent accepted that Crohn’s disease, psoriatic arthropathy and ankylosing spondylitis were disabilities. The live issue was whether the claimant also had a mental impairment, described as a generalised anxiety condition and/or a tendency to such a condition, and whether PTSD had any relevance.

The tribunal rejected the PTSD contention because the medical material before it did not provide a prima facie case of that condition. It then reviewed GP notes, occupational health records and Dr Medley’s 19 June 2019 report. Those records showed recurrent episodes of stress, anxiety and depression over a long period, including references in 2000, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2016, 2017 and April 2019, together with continuous antidepressant treatment from December 2008. The tribunal also relied on an occupational health note from November 2000 recording that the claimant was secondarily depressed as a result of his psoriatic arthropathy.

Applying section 6 Equality Act 2010, Schedule 1 paragraph 2 and paragraph 5, and referring to J v DLA Piper UK LLP [2010] ICR 1052, the tribunal found on the balance of probabilities that April 2019 was not the first manifestation of the condition. It held that the claimant suffered from a mental impairment in the form of a generalised anxiety condition and/or a tendency to such a condition, primarily as a separate disability and alternatively as a secondary feature of the admitted physical disabilities. It concluded that the claimant was disabled at all material times and that the absences for stress, insofar relevant, were disability-related. No remedy was determined in this preliminary ruling.