Dr J Kerr (counsel) For the v Mr P Sands (Solicitor) — 2023

This was a preliminary issue hearing on whether the claimant had a disability for the purposes of s.6 Equality Act 2010. The claimant relied on anxiety and stress. The tribunal accepted that he had periods in 2014 and 2016 when he suffered a mental impairment connected to difficulties with a patient at work, and that those periods had a substantial effect while he was off work, but it found the effects were limited to those discrete episodes and did not continue for at least 12 months.

The tribunal found there was no sufficient evidence of a continuing substantial adverse effect on normal day-to-day activities between November 2014 and March 2016, and it treated the March 2016 attendance with his GP as an isolated incident. It also found that the claimant had not given clear evidence of day-to-day functional impact outside sickness absence, and that the medical records did not show ongoing attendance for stress or anxiety during that interval.

As to 2021, the tribunal accepted that the claimant was stressed by the COVID-19 vaccination requirement and related workplace rules, and the occupational health report recorded significant stress with components of anxiety and mild depression. However, it was not persuaded that this amounted to a long-term substantial adverse effect after his employment ended on 21 December 2021, and it found the September to December 2021 stress was tied to his reaction to mandatory vaccination rather than established disability. The disability discrimination claim was therefore dismissed, and the judgment records that the ordinary unfair dismissal claim survived.