Mr Jonathan Franklin v Mitra Innovation Ltd — 2022

The open preliminary hearing concerned whether Mr Jonathan Franklin was, at the material time mainly from November 2019 to 23 April 2020, a disabled person within section 6 of the Equality Act 2010 by reason of the combined effect of asthma and anxiety. The tribunal accepted that he had a physical impairment in the form of asthma and that he had experienced anxiety on various occasions, but it required evidence that the impairment had a substantial and long-term adverse effect on normal day-to-day activities.

The tribunal considered the medical records, the claimant’s impact statement, his oral evidence, and letters from Dr Oldfield and Dr Watts. It found the GP notes to be the most reliable evidence of symptoms at specific times. It concluded that the letters did not assist the claimant on the key issue of disability at the material time, because Dr Oldfield’s letter reflected the position in March 2021 and Dr Watts’ September 2022 letter did not explain why anxiety was said to have started three years earlier or how that related to the material time.

On the pre-Covid period, the tribunal found that the claimant had shown episodes of anxiety in response to stressful life events, but had not shown the adverse effects described in his impact statement were present then. It accepted that he was likely to have experienced anxiety previously, but found no evidence that any earlier episodes had adversely affected day-to-day activities or that any continuing effect was likely to recur within paragraph 2(2) of Schedule 1. It also found insufficient evidence that asthma, whether alone or combined with anxiety and in the absence of medication, produced a substantial adverse effect during that period.

The tribunal found that the position changed with the emergence of Covid-19, which the claimant described as a “game changer”, and accepted that the combined effect of anxiety and asthma then likely had a substantial effect on day-to-day activities. However, it held that the claimant had not shown that, at any point during the material time, the impairment had lasted or was likely to last for at least 12 months. In light of that finding, the tribunal held that the claimant did not have a disability under the Equality Act 2010 at the material time and dismissed the remaining disability discrimination claims.