Mrs B Warburton v Genesis Homes (North) Limited — 2023

Employment Judge Anderson, sitting alone, determined a preliminary issue only: whether Mrs B Warburton was a disabled person for the purposes of s.6 Equality Act 2010 during her employment with Genesis Homes (North) Limited between 10 January 2022 and 24 March 2022. The tribunal found that she was disabled in that period. It accepted that the relevant impairment was breathlessness, affecting stairs, modest walking distances and household tasks, and said the focus had to be on the symptoms present in the relevant period rather than later diagnoses or events after employment.

The tribunal found that the symptoms could be traced on contemporaneous records to around 24 August 2021 and that, by January 2022, they had lasted long enough to be likely to continue for 12 months or more. It held that the effect was more than minor or trivial and rejected the Respondent's argument that the period should be treated as divisible so as to produce a different answer at different points in the employment. The judge applied s.6 Equality Act 2010, s.212, Schedule 1 paragraph 2, and SCA Packaging Ltd v Boyle on 'likely' meaning 'could well happen'. The judgment states that nothing in it should be taken as a view on the strengths or weaknesses of the overall claim.