Mr S Bradley v Cultureshift Communications Limited — 2023

At a remote preliminary hearing, Employment Judge Shotter considered whether Mr Bradley was disabled for Equality Act purposes during the period 29 April 2021 to 30 July 2021. The tribunal accepted that he had a physical and mental impairment associated with long covid, with anxiety, depression, lethargy and tiredness, and rejected fibromyalgia as a separate established impairment on the evidence before it. It held that the disability issue was made out and that the tribunal had jurisdiction to consider the disability discrimination complaints.

The judge relied on the GP records, fit notes, impact statements and oral evidence, accepting that the claimant experienced severe fatigue, poor concentration, brain fog, low mood and anxiety, and that he needed daytime rest or sleep for periods of around one to three hours. The tribunal found that full-time high-pressure work was a normal day-to-day activity and that the claimant's condition had more than a minor or trivial adverse effect on his ability to carry out such activities. It did not accept that reduced athletic performance alone would have been enough, but assessed the claimant's position in the round, including the cumulative effect of fatigue, anxiety and depression.

The tribunal also found that the impairment was likely to last at least 12 months, even though it had not yet lasted that long by 30 July 2021. It accepted that the claimant had taken measures including anti-depressant medication, counselling and coping strategies, and held that without those measures the adverse effects would have been more substantial and long-term. The judgment records that the disability discrimination complaints would proceed to a liability hearing together with the unfair dismissal complaint, with case management dealt with separately; no substantive liability or monetary award was determined in this decision.