Mr Kaminski (with the assistance of a HMCTS appointed interpreter) For the v Respondent — 2024

Mr Kaminski worked for Amazon UK Services Ltd as a fulfilment centre associate from 5 October 2021 until he left on 19 June 2023. He had brought two claims, one containing discrimination complaints including direct disability discrimination, and another containing constructive unfair dismissal, but the constructive dismissal claim had already been struck out in an earlier judgment. This hearing was listed as a preliminary issue to decide whether he was disabled for the purposes of s.6 Equality Act 2010 at the time of the events in issue.

The Tribunal found that Mr Kaminski had established disability in relation to the cumulative effects of his visual impairments. It accepted that he had keratoconus, retinal detachment and amblyopia, and found that those conditions, taken together, had a long-term adverse effect on normal day-to-day activities that was more than minor or trivial. By contrast, it found that astigmatism was not itself a disability because its effects were largely corrected by glasses. It also rejected disability findings for the arthritic/joint conditions because the evidence about day-to-day impact was too general, with the main example being discomfort when standing in one position for 5 to 10 minutes at church.

The Tribunal also accepted that anxiety and depression were impairments that met the statutory test during the relevant period. It found that these conditions began after the loss of the claimant’s first baby in May 2021, but that they continued into his employment and were worsened by workplace issues from around February/March 2022 onward. The Tribunal accepted evidence that the effects included difficulty sleeping, concentrating, communicating, socialising, cooking, playing on his PlayStation, and maintaining his sex life, and it found those effects were long-term and substantial. It did not accept OCD as a disability on the evidence, and it found PTSD was not shown to be continuing at the material time; it also treated stress as a symptom rather than a separate impairment.

The result was that the Tribunal held Mr Kaminski was disabled at the material time by reason of his visual impairments and anxiety/depression, so the disability discrimination claim could proceed to a full merits hearing. No remedy was assessed in this judgment.