Claimant v The University of Sheffield — 2020

The claimant brought disability discrimination complaints, including a reasonable adjustments complaint said to arise from an alleged practice of "gaslighting" and from the respondent’s sickness absence management procedure. At this preliminary hearing, Employment Judge Maidment was deciding only whether the claimant met the definition of disability under section 6 Equality Act 2010, and if so from when. The tribunal heard evidence from the claimant, his wife H, and Dr Fieldman, together with medical records and an occupational health report.

The tribunal accepted that the claimant had experienced a developing mental health impairment linked to work, with memory problems, loss of concentration, fatigue, sleep disturbance, anxiety and reduced engagement in normal social activity. It found no basis on the evidence to conclude that he suffered from PTSD, but held that by 26 September 2019 he was suffering from work-related stress and associated anxiety which had a substantial adverse effect on day-to-day activities and was likely to last at least 12 months. The tribunal said the impairment had not started on 26 September 2019, but it could not fix an earlier disability date because the chronology before then was not sufficiently clear; it did, however, accept that the substantial effect had built up before that date and probably from at least August 2019, with some signs earlier.