Mr L. Dhillon v Royal Mail Group Limited — 2018

The claimant remained employed by the respondent and brought a victimisation complaint under section 27 Equality Act 2010. The respondent accepted that the claimant was disabled by depression, but the issue for the tribunal was whether he suffered a detriment because he had brought two earlier tribunal claims in 2016 and 2017, which were accepted to be protected acts.

The tribunal found that the claimant had requested an occupational health referral on or around 9 October 2017 and that no referral had been made by the time he issued this claim on 11 May 2018. It found that the seven-month delay was a detriment because a reasonable employee would regard that as a disadvantage.

The tribunal dismissed the claim because it found the delay was not because of the protected acts. It accepted that some delay related to the Christmas period and that most of the delay arose from the claimant's refusal to use the respondent's contracted occupational health provider, OH Assist. The tribunal found that Ms Easton and Mr Nforgwei had no knowledge of the previous tribunal claims at the relevant time, and that although Mr Patel knew of them from January 2018, his actions were not because of that knowledge.