In person For the v Respondent — 2020

This was a preliminary issue hearing on whether Mr Moss was disabled within s.6 Equality Act 2010 by the date of his dismissal on 9 May 2019. The tribunal considered medical notes, a GP referral, psychotherapy notes from Dr Bergson, and the parties' submissions. It applied s.6 and Schedule 1 paragraph 5, together with the guidance in J v DLA Piper UK, Herry v Dudley MBC, Adremi v London and South Eastern Railway Ltd, and Kapadia v London Borough of Lambeth. The judge also noted the need to look at the evidence without over-literal reliance on words such as stress and anxiety.

The tribunal accepted that the claimant experienced workplace-related symptoms from around March 2018 and that those symptoms had a substantial adverse effect on day-to-day activities. It found that the impairment interfered with leisure activities, exercise, and socialising, and that there was some change in his aspect and behaviour. However, it drew a distinction between the earlier stress-related reactions recorded by the GP in April and May 2018 and a later medical condition of anxiety, which the tribunal found developed only in the second half of 2018.

The tribunal was not satisfied that the condition was long term or likely to be long term by the material date. It placed weight on the chronology of consultations, the GP's use of 'stress' in the earlier notes and 'anxiety' later in 2018 and early 2019, the referral wording of 27 December 2018, the claimant's recovery during early 2019, and Dr Bergson's discharge note in April 2019. On that basis, it concluded that Mr Moss did not meet the statutory test of disability at the material time.

The formal result was that the direct disability discrimination claims were struck out. The judgment records that the victimisation claims were not dependent on s.6 status and were left to proceed to the later hearing.