Mr Steven Sullivan v Prime Atlantic Group Ltd — 2021

This was a preliminary hearing before Employment Judge Cassel, sitting alone, on whether Mr Steven Sullivan was a disabled person for the purposes of section 6 of the Equality Act 2010 at the time of the alleged acts. The tribunal said the relevant question was the claimant's condition at the time of the alleged breaches, not at the date of the hearing, and applied the section 6 definition together with the guidance and authorities it cited.

The judge accepted that the claimant had a mental impairment, but found that the contemporaneous evidence did not show a substantial adverse effect on normal day-to-day activities or a long-term impairment during the period in issue. The judgment records that the claimant accepted there was no recorded medical information of a depressive illness in August 2018, that the first references in the GP notes were in December 2019 and January 2020, and that by February 2020 the notes recorded that he was feeling better and his mood was better. The Priory notes repeatedly referred to no suicidal thoughts or risk concerns, and the NHS Well-being Centre graph was accepted by the claimant as an accurate reflection of his condition, including that he was "healthy" by May 2020.

The tribunal gave less weight to the later report of Dr Andrew Iles, although it noted his opinion that the claimant met the diagnostic criteria for severe depressive disorder. The judge said Dr Iles had not heard the claimant's oral evidence or cross-examination, and that parts of the report depended on the claimant's own account of symptom onset in August 2018, which the tribunal did not accept on the balance of probabilities. Applying the authorities it cited, including Goodwin v Patent Office, Cruickshank v Vaw Motorcast Ltd and McNicol v Balfour Beatty Rail Maintenance Ltd, the tribunal concluded that the evidence did not establish a substantial or long-term impairment at the relevant time.

The result was that Mr Sullivan was not a disabled person at the relevant time and the tribunal had no jurisdiction to consider his Equality Act 2010 disability discrimination claims.