Mr L Davis v Switch International Trailers (UK) Limited — 2021

Mr Davis was an HGV driver with PTSD. The tribunal accepted that he had been disabled at all material times. The dispute concerned a change in routing and start times after September 2019, and the 15 January 2020 text exchange in which Mr Davis said the changes were affecting his PTSD and asked for support and reasonable adjustments.

The tribunal accepted that there was a downturn in container work in early 2020, but found that the redundancy process was targeted at Mr Davis. It held that Ms Richardson's response to the 15 January exchange, including her reference to HR and options, was threatening in context, and that the decision to put him in a pool of one and dismiss him was driven by his inflexibility on start times and, in particular, route changes. The tribunal found that the route-change issue was something arising in consequence of PTSD and that the respondent had not shown the treatment to be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

On that basis, the discrimination arising from disability claim succeeded and the victimisation claim also succeeded. The protected act was the 15 January 2020 exchange in which Mr Davis raised his disability and asked for reasonable adjustments. The tribunal held that this was a protected act for section 27 Equality Act 2010 purposes and that it was a significant factor in the detriment. Direct discrimination failed because the tribunal considered that a hypothetical comparator with the same inflexibility but without the disability would have been treated the same way.

The reasonable-adjustments claim was dismissed because, although the company knew of PTSD, the tribunal found it did not know and could not reasonably have been expected to know until 15 January 2020 that Mr Davis was likely to be disadvantaged by changes to routing. It also found that the company promptly sought a medical report after that point. The unfair dismissal claim succeeded because the respondent had not shown that redundancy was the real reason for dismissal; the tribunal considered the process to have been targeted and to have been implemented by unfair means.

Remedy was limited by causation. The tribunal awarded £8,000 for injury to feelings plus £1,229.15 interest, and £8,051.16 for financial loss plus £617.62 interest, limiting the loss period to 9 December 2020. It also awarded £2,100 under section 38 of the Employment Act 2002, a £2,625 basic award and a £400 compensatory award. The tribunal made no recommendation and said the Recoupment Regulations did not apply.