Mrs K Lecznar v Paratech Coating UK Limited — 2024

The Claimant worked for the Respondent from 6 November 2019 until a redundancy dismissal on or around 28 February 2022. This judgment determined a preliminary issue only: whether depression and anxiety amounted to a disability under section 6 of the Equality Act 2010 during the period from November 2021 to 28 February 2022. The Claimant’s disability discrimination case included allegations about the redundancy scoring and consultation process and a failure to make reasonable adjustments.

The tribunal accepted that the Claimant had a number of short-lived periods of worry, upset, and stress before December 2021, linked to her physical health concerns, the apartment fire in Poland, work disagreements, and her grandfather’s death. It found that medical records in 2020 and 2021 referred to her mood as “fine” or “upbeat”, and it did not accept that the earlier episodes showed a mental impairment rather than reactions to adverse events. It found that a mental impairment of depression and anxiety had developed by around December 2021, when a doctor in Poland referred her for suspected depressive syndrome, but the first diagnosis and treatment in the UK were on 3 February 2022, when her GP issued a fit note for stress at work, anxiety and depression and prescribed sertraline.

The tribunal held that the substantial adverse effect on normal day-to-day activities did not arise until around 3 February 2022. As at 28 February 2022, the adverse effects had not lasted for 12 months, and the evidence did not show that they were likely to last for 12 months or recur. Applying the Equality Act 2010 definition of disability and the long-term effect provisions in Schedule 1, the tribunal concluded that the Claimant was not a disabled person at the material time. All disability discrimination claims were therefore dismissed.