Ms L Millin, Counsel For the v Respondent — 2021

Ms Radovic began work as a Major Works Officer on 13 March 2017. After the team moved to the Town Hall Extension and adopted hot-desking, she sought a fixed desk and raised concerns about anxiety, other medical conditions and later toilet access. The tribunal found that, by 28 November 2017, the respondent corporately knew enough about her anxiety to be treated as knowing of a disability, and that it had corporate knowledge of nocturia from 4 January 2018; it did not accept that Mr Maguire personally knew about nocturia earlier than that.

The reasonable-adjustments claim succeeded only in part. The tribunal accepted that the hot-desking arrangement, and the informal practice of not fully enforcing it, were PCPs that placed the claimant at a substantial disadvantage because of anxiety. It found that the respondent should have allocated a permanent desk within a reasonable period after the grievance of 28 November 2017, and held that there was a breach between 12 December 2017 and 26 January 2018, when the desk was confirmed as permanent at the stage 1 sickness review. The tribunal rejected the other proposed adjustments, including working from home or condensed hours, returning to the previous office, better toilet provision, keeping furniture and equipment, a stricter approach to desk tidying, and the workstation assessment point.

The direct disability discrimination and harassment complaints were dismissed. The tribunal held that several allegations were out of time and refused to extend time on a just and equitable basis. On the in-time allegations, it found that the relevant conduct was not less favourable treatment because of disability and, on the harassment claim, that the conduct did not reach the section 26 threshold. On the nocturia-related allegations, it found that the claimant was not shown to have been prevented from accessing lavatories by the move or by the toilet arrangements, and that the first-floor toilet pass arranged in February 2018 removed any substantial disadvantage from that point.

The victimisation claim was also dismissed. The tribunal accepted that the claimant had carried out protected acts by bringing tribunal claims and raising a grievance, but held that the later disciplinary process and dismissal were driven by her conduct, tone of emails, refusal to follow management instructions and the breakdown of working relationships, not by the protected acts. It relied on the distinction between the protected act and separable conduct, and found that the protected acts did not have a significant influence on the dismissal decision.

The tribunal recorded that the grievance of 28 November 2017 was partially upheld on 5 April 2018 only to the extent that the occupational health recommendations had not been passed on clearly enough to allow reasonable adjustments to be made earlier. All other grievance points, including disability discrimination and sex discrimination complaints, were not upheld. The earlier unpaid wages claim was found out of time at a preliminary hearing on 30 May 2018, the equal pay claim was withdrawn, and remedy was left for a separate hearing listed for 11 November 2021.