Mr. N. J. Tretis v DHL Services Ltd OPEN PRELIMINARY HEARING — 2022

The hearing was a preliminary issue on whether Mr N. J. Tretis was disabled within section 6 Equality Act 2010 by reason of chronic fatigue syndrome during the relevant period of alleged discrimination, December 2019 to 3 March 2021. The respondent accepted that he had been diagnosed with CFS but disputed that the impairment met the statutory definition of disability. The tribunal applied section 6, Schedule 1, the EHRC Guidance and Code, and cited Paterson, Leonard, SCA Packaging and Swift.

The tribunal accepted that Mr Tretis had been struggling from late 2019 and early 2020, with tiredness and feeling run down, and that by 26 May 2020 he was signed off work for exhaustion. It accepted symptoms of fatigue, muscular aches, joint pain, a dull headache, flu-like symptoms and "brain fuzz", but did not accept that faltering eyesight or breathing difficulties were linked to CFS. It found that those symptoms adversely affected normal day-to-day activities including walking, showering, sleeping, driving long distances, shopping, exercise, socialising, computer use, housework, cutting the grass, washing the car and his ability to work, though the effect varied between minor and substantial depending on severity.

The tribunal held that there was insufficient evidence to find that the symptoms had a substantial adverse effect before 26 May 2020, although it accepted that the claimant had requested time off in February and March 2020 and had been feeling unwell earlier in the year. It found that the impairment had not yet lasted 12 months by the relevant date, but was likely to last at least 12 months, likely to last for the rest of his life, and likely to recur. It therefore concluded that the claimant was disabled within the meaning of the Equality Act 2010 from 26 May 2020 to 3 March 2021, and that his disability discrimination complaints could proceed.