Mrs Josephina Kugaswaran v London Borough of Brent — 2024

The claimant remained employed by the respondent as a Care Assessor and brought a claim alleging disability discrimination. The respondent accepted that, at the relevant time, the claimant was disabled for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 by reason of a degenerative spine and rotator cuff injury, and the tribunal considered the strike-out application on that basis.

The reasonable adjustments complaint concerned the claimant being without a second laptop at work between 2 and 17 May 2023. The tribunal found that a second laptop had previously been supplied, but while the claimant was absent from work it had been locked away for safekeeping after the team moved location within the building. Arrangements then had to be made for her to access it on return, and the tribunal held she had no reasonable prospect of proving a failure to make reasonable adjustments.

The victimisation complaints concerned being asked to go through a backlog of about 400 emails after a lengthy absence and questioning about why she could not access her locker. The tribunal held that the email request was part of normal office activity and not a detriment, and that the locker questioning was not capable of amounting to a detriment on the claimant's case. It also found the claimant had no reasonable prospect of showing that either matter was because she had brought the tribunal claim. The claim was struck out in its entirety.