Mr John Lawrence v Insight Strategic Associates Limited and 1 other — 2020

The claimant was a team manager at a small accountancy practice. The tribunal accepted that he was a disabled person because of depression with anxiety, but found that the respondents did not know, and could not reasonably have been expected to know, that he was disabled until around 21 February 2019, and did not have the knowledge needed for the reasonable-adjustments duty until 12 March 2019 when they received the fit note recommending home working. The tribunal rejected the claimant's account of the 14 February 2019 meeting, including allegations that Mr Baptie shouted, swore, or told him he would not return to his role, and found that several later complaints rested on his perception of events rather than what actually happened.

On the reasonable-adjustments complaint, the majority identified the relevant PCP as the requirement to work at the office and found that the claimant was placed at a substantial disadvantage by his anxiety and depression. It accepted that the respondents made some adjustments, including time off, four weeks of home working, allowing the solicitor to attend the grievance meeting, a written appeal, and a phased return to the office. However, the majority held that allowing open-ended home working, together with Skype and a company mobile phone, was not a reasonable adjustment in this small, paper-based business because the claimant's role required day-to-day team management, allocation of work, and close supervision of paper files, and because during home working he had not maintained oral contact with colleagues. The minority would have found that further adjustments, including auxiliary aids and a more flexible temporary restructuring, should have been tried.

The tribunal dismissed the direct disability discrimination, section 15, indirect discrimination, harassment, and victimisation complaints. It found no basis for the allegations that Mr Baptie bullied or sabotaged the claimant, or that the grievance and appeal were handled other than impartially by independent HR consultants. The direct discrimination claim failed in part because the proposed comparators, Jane Katz and Garry Smart, were not proper comparators for the claimant's role. The section 15 complaint failed because the payment of statutory sick pay from 3 May 2019, after the claimant refused to start the phased return to the office, was held to be a proportionate means of achieving the respondents' legitimate aims of running the business efficiently, protecting privacy and client confidentiality, and maintaining client service. The indirect discrimination complaint failed because no group disadvantage was proved, and the respondents also established justification.

The majority found no constructive dismissal and no breach of contract. It held that the claimant resigned on 2 July 2019 and that the evidence showed he was moving to a new business, Guida Accountancy Limited, which had been incorporated on 15 May 2019 and of which he became a director on 3 July 2019. On that view, the respondents were entitled to treat his absence as sickness absence and to pay statutory sick pay rather than full pay from 3 May 2019; there was no unlawful deduction from wages. The minority would have upheld the reasonable-adjustments complaint and, flowing from that, constructive dismissal and breach of contract, but the final judgment dismissed the claim in full and vacated the provisional remedy hearing.