ETZ 4(WR) EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS (SCOTLAND) Case no 4104130/2020 Held remotely on 19, 20, 21, 26, and April 2021 (V) Employment Judge W A Meiklejohn Tribunal Member Mrs J Lindsay Tribunal Member Mrs S Lawson Mrs G Dinse v Represented by: Ms S Shiels – Solicitor Department for Work and Pensions — 2021

The claimant, Mrs G Dinse, worked for the Department for Work and Pensions at Musselburgh Jobcentre and the respondent accepted that she was disabled by epilepsy and general anxiety disorder, with knowledge of those conditions. The tribunal found that there had been a strained working relationship with Mr Edmond, but it approached the case by examining each incident against the Equality Act 2010 rather than treating the background as itself determinative.

On the reasonable-adjustments complaints, the tribunal held that the 10 July 2019 incident did not involve the PCP alleged by the claimant, because the customer she was asked to see was her own late 11.10 appointment, not an additional walk-in customer, and in any event someone else saw the customer. For the 22 January 2020 meeting, the tribunal found there was no PCP requiring employees to attend weekly team meetings and no refusal of the claimant's request. On 29 January 2020 the tribunal did find that the PCP about seeing additional customers was applied to the claimant, but the adjustment sought was then made when Ms Stalker saw the customers, so there was no breach of the duty to make reasonable adjustments.

The harassment complaints also failed. The tribunal accepted that some of Mr Edmond's behaviour felt discourteous to the claimant, including aspects of the 10 July 2019 and 29 January 2020 encounters and the 12 March 2020 meeting, but it found that the conduct was not related to disability in the relevant sense, or was not carried out with the purpose of creating the proscribed environment. Where it considered effect under section 26(4), it applied the objective element and concluded that the statutory test was not met. The tribunal also treated the 12 March 2020 communication about instructions to other staff and the existence of a grievance against the claimant as reasonable face-to-face steps rather than harassment.

The victimisation complaint failed because the tribunal was not satisfied that the detriments alleged were caused by a protected act. It accepted that the claimant's 10 July 2019 email could amount to a protected act, but found that the cancellation of the September 2019 mediation was due to Mr Wilkinson's miscommunication rather than retaliation, that the 11 December 2019 report about an early lunch came from someone other than Mr Edmond, and that Mr Edmond's later grievance was not brought because the claimant had complained under the Act. The respondent's time-bar argument was not decisive because all complaints were dismissed on the merits; if it had mattered, the tribunal said it would have viewed the incidents as a series of isolated events rather than conduct extending over a period under Hendricks.