In person represented by her son, Mr Staszewski and assisted by an Interpreter, Miss Matusik For the v Respondent — 2025

The claimant, Ms Weronika Mularczyk, had worked for Pyramid Posters Limited as a warehouse operative from 27 April 2015 until her employment ended on 19 August 2023 on the grounds of incapacity due to ill health. After earlier case-management hearings and withdrawals, the remaining complaints were ordinary unfair dismissal, a section 15 complaint relating to the dismissal, and a section 20/21 reasonable-adjustments complaint based on an alleged January 2016 requirement to do normal duties instead of light duties. The respondent accepted that the claimant was disabled by her back condition, and later conceded disability in relation to depression, but did not accept that anxiety was a disability.

On the preliminary disability issue, Employment Judge Broughton found that the claimant had not proved that anxiety was a separate mental impairment, or that she suffered from a mixed anxiety and depressive disorder, at the relevant time. The judge accepted that the claimant experienced anxiousness as a symptom of the depressive disorder, but held that this did not amount to a separate anxiety disability. The tribunal noted that the GP records did not diagnose anxiety, did not refer to panic attacks, and did not support the proposition that anxiety was treated as a distinct condition. It preferred the contemporaneous GP evidence and the signed letter from Dr Chauhan over the undated letter from Dr Dayah, which the judge found unreliable because Dr Dayah had not examined the claimant and the letter was unsupported by the patient records.

The tribunal also addressed the respondent's strike-out application under Rule 37(1)(a) and alternative deposit-order application under Rule 39 in relation to the reasonable-adjustments claim. Applying the statutory definition of disability, the Schedule 1 provisions, and the strike-out authorities cited by the parties, the judge took the claimant's case at its highest and held that there was not little or no reasonable prospect of the section 20/21 claim succeeding. The tribunal accepted that there was a reasonably arguable basis for saying that the January 2016 requirement to do normal duties instead of light duties was a PCP and that the claimant's case on continuing discriminatory conduct extending to the 19 August 2023 dismissal could not be struck out at this stage. The application to strike out, or alternatively for a deposit order, was refused. The hearing did not determine the final merits of the unfair dismissal or section 15 claims, and no remedy was awarded in this decision.