In person For the v Respondent — 2024

Mr O Ball worked for Riskex Limited as a Sales Development Representative from 9 May 2022 until he resigned with immediate effect on 15 January 2023. The tribunal found that the respondent's requirement that he attend the office three days per week was linked to training, collaboration, operational efficiency, and his development plan, and that the claimant was in practice allowed some additional home working during parts of his employment.

On the direct discrimination claim, the tribunal rejected the comparisons with Quintin Matthee, Mark Legg, and David Dack because their circumstances were materially different from the claimant's. It also rejected the allegations that he was excluded from photographs in September 2022 and from Christmas festivities in December 2022: on the tribunal's findings he was on annual leave when the photographs were taken, and he was invited to the festive events in the same way as other staff. The tribunal preferred Ms Porter's evidence that she did not know of the claimant's mental health condition until 7 December 2022, and found no facts from which it could infer less favourable treatment because of disability.

On reasonable adjustments, the tribunal held that the claimant's request from December 2022 onwards was driven mainly by a fractured left hand. It found there was no reliable medical evidence that the fracture itself was a disability within section 6 of the Equality Act 2010, and it was not persuaded that the fracture exacerbated his amniotic band syndrome so as to create a substantial disadvantage within section 20(3). It accepted the respondent's explanations for refusing full-time home working as genuine and as objectively justified by its business needs, and noted that the workload-reduction point was not pursued at the end of the case.

On harassment, the tribunal found that Ms Rumbelow responded to the grievance on 8 and 11 December 2022, held a Teams meeting with the claimant, and arranged a formal grievance meeting for 6 January 2023, so there was no material departure from the grievance procedure. It accepted that questions about dressing and washing arose in the context of the claimant's home-working requests, but held that the conduct did not meet the section 26 test. The constructive dismissal claim also failed because the underlying complaints failed, and the resignation of 15 January 2023 followed the grievance rejection rather than a proven discriminatory repudiatory breach.