Mr J Farley v London Borough of Waltham Forest — 2021

The claimant was dismissed after a final sickness absence hearing on 19 October 2018. The tribunal found the respondent had genuine concerns about the claimant's performance before the relevant disabilities arose, and dismissed the direct disability discrimination complaints because the relevant decision makers did not know that the claimant's health conditions amounted to disabilities and the challenged treatment was not because of disability itself.

The tribunal dismissed the reasonable adjustments complaints. It found that performance monitoring did not place the claimant at a substantial disadvantage arising from disability, that the sickness absence trigger did place him at a disadvantage but it was not reasonable to remove or extend that trigger, and that the resignation requirement in the capability redeployment process was not a required adjustment because a separate medical redeployment policy existed.

The tribunal upheld the section 15 complaint only in relation to dismissal. It accepted that dismissal was because of sickness absence arising from disability and that the respondent had a legitimate aim in managing sickness absence, but found dismissal was not shown to be proportionate because the respondent had not properly considered whether the medical redeployment policy applied before dismissing him.

The unfair dismissal claim also succeeded. Although capability was a potentially fair reason and further medical evidence was not required, a reasonable employer would have considered whether the respondent's own medical redeployment policy applied. That failure took the dismissal outside the band of reasonable responses. Remedy was left for a separate hearing.