Ms D Horton v Park Avenue Healthcare Limited — 2026

The tribunal upheld Ms D Horton's complaint that Park Avenue Healthcare Ltd failed to make reasonable adjustments by providing a suitable orthopaedic chair as an auxiliary aid. Although the respondent sought to provide a suitable chair, those supplied in November and December 2021 were unsuitable. Under section 123(4)(b), the tribunal placed the failure on 14 December 2021, when the period within which the respondent might reasonably have been expected to take steps expired. The complaint was outside the statutory time limit, but the tribunal found it just and equitable to extend time.

A further chair was supplied on 16 March 2022. Immediately after that date, the respondent was not in breach of its duty because it reasonably believed it had provided a suitable chair and could not reasonably have been expected to know that the claimant was likely to face a substantial disadvantage compared with people who were not disabled. By 1 April 2022, the claimant had told her line manager that the chair was unsuitable. The respondent could then reasonably have been expected to know that she was likely to face the relevant disadvantage.

The tribunal dismissed the complaints of direct race discrimination and direct disability discrimination as not well-founded. It also dismissed the complaints of harassment related to disability as not well-founded.

All complaints of harassment related to race were dismissed. For one complaint, the tribunal found that remarks related to a stereotype that black people were athletic did amount to harassment related to race. That complaint was brought outside the statutory time limit, however, and the tribunal found that it was not just and equitable to extend time.

The holiday pay complaint was dismissed as not well-founded. The judgment records no monetary award or remedy breakdown.