In person For the v Mr Y Mahmood consultant — 2023

This was a preliminary hearing before Employment Judge Truscott KC on 8 December 2023 to decide whether the claimant was disabled at the material time for the purposes of her disability-based claims. The claimant represented herself and relied on a disability impact statement and GP records. The tribunal identified the relevant dates as 23 January 2023 to 6 February 2023, and 17 April 2023, and proceeded on the basis of anxiety and depression rather than making any wider findings about the underlying employment dispute.

The tribunal accepted that the claimant had experienced periods of stress and anxiety linked to work and personal life events, with medical records showing treatment at different times, including Sertraline in 2020 and 2021 and a request to restart it on 17 February 2023. It found that from November or December 2021 to November 2022 she was functioning without medication and carrying out normal day-to-day activities. The tribunal treated the medical records as showing episodic stress-related problems rather than a continuous impairment with a sustained substantial adverse effect.

Applying section 6(1) of the Equality Act 2010, Schedule 1 paragraphs 2 and 5, and the authorities it cited including Igweike, Aderemi, McDougall, All Answers, Sullivan, and J v DLA Piper, the tribunal concluded that the claimant had not shown a substantial adverse effect that had lasted or was likely to last at least 12 months at the material time. It found that the episodes were triggered by serious life events, lasted for a number of months, and then subsided, and that they were not likely to recur on the evidence before it.

Because the claimant had not established disability, the tribunal held that the disability discrimination complaints, including the section 15 and section 20 claims and the section 26 harassment complaint, had no reasonable prospect of success and were struck out under Rule 37(1)(a). No remedy was awarded.