Ms S McWilliams v Angelo Gordon Europe LLP; and 6 others — 2022

At an open preliminary hearing on 5 October 2022, the tribunal dealt only with whether Ms McWilliams was a disabled person within section 6 Equality Act 2010 from the date of her first allegation in May 2021 until her dismissal on 8 December 2021, by reason of asthma and oral allergy syndrome. The parties had agreed the amendment application, and the jurisdiction issue concerning respondents 6 and 7 was left for the final hearing. The claimant had brought claims of direct discrimination, discrimination arising from disability, indirect discrimination, failure to make reasonable adjustments and harassment.

On asthma, the tribunal accepted that the claimant believed she had the condition and had repeat Ventolin prescriptions, but the medical records did not show an adult diagnosis being confirmed, a preventer inhaler, an acute asthma attack requiring treatment, or a recent GP review. It found no medical evidence of a deduced effect if she did not take Ventolin and concluded that any asthma, if present, had little or no adverse effect on normal day to day activities at the relevant times.

On oral allergy syndrome, the tribunal accepted that the claimant had a physical impairment and some historical allergy clinic diagnosis, but found that the skin prick tests did not show banana allergy, the RAST results were only weakly positive for banana and avocado, and more recent GP notes only recorded oral allergy syndrome after the claimant raised it. It did not accept that she had the significant symptoms she described, that she needed daily antihistamines, or that she had suffered anaphylactic shock. Applying the objective approach discussed in Primaz, and relying on Woodrup and Royal Bank of Scotland v Morris on deduced effects, the tribunal held that subjective belief alone was not enough. Taking asthma and oral allergy syndrome together, it found no more than a trivial adverse effect on normal day to day activities and held that she was not a disabled person at the relevant times.