Ms Ferber, Counsel For the v Respondent — 2019

This was a preliminary hearing to decide whether the claimant's depression and anxiety amounted to a disability within section 6 of the Equality Act 2010 during the period May 2017 to July 2020. The tribunal considered the claimant's evidence, GP notes, occupational health reports from October 2019 and July 2020, and a therapist's report dated 20 February 2020. The law was common ground and the burden of proving disability rested on the claimant.

The tribunal found no medical evidence of a mental health impairment between May 2017 and 22 February 2018. It noted that the GP notes first recorded depressive mood on 22 February 2018, when medication was prescribed and then altered because the first medication was not helping. The claimant's account that the effects began in October 2016, and that medication was increased from October 2017, was not supported by the contemporaneous medical records.

On the evidence available, the tribunal concluded that the claimant had a mental impairment from February 2018 at the latest and that it had a substantial and long-term adverse effect on her normal day-to-day activities from that point. It therefore held that the claimant satisfied the definition of disability under section 6 of the Equality Act 2010 from 22 February 2018. The judgment did not determine the substantive liability issues or any remedy, and it recorded that some list-of-issues paragraphs were withdrawn and dismissed.