Mr S Athwal v Morrison Water Services Ltd — 2026

At a public preliminary hearing, the tribunal determined that Mr Athwal was disabled at the material time within section 6 of the Equality Act 2010. The judgment did not determine the merits of his disability discrimination or unfair dismissal claims and made no award of compensation.

The tribunal accepted that Mr Athwal experienced a mental impairment characterised by work-related stress and anxiety from November 2023 to February 2025. This was supported by contemporaneous GP records, fit notes and his evidence that he used acupuncture, cupping and herbal treatment. It did not find that the evidence established depression, panic attacks or hypertension, or that his long-standing urinary symptoms were connected to stress and anxiety.

The accepted impairment adversely affected normal day-to-day activities through significant sleeping difficulties, persistent exhaustion, anxiety and an inability to sustain work-related functioning. By November 2023, the symptoms had resulted in a prolonged absence from work supported by GP fit notes. The tribunal found that these effects were more than minor or trivial and therefore substantial.

Although Mr Athwal returned to work after January 2024 and appeared to cope for a period, the tribunal found that similar work-related stressors were likely to persist and that there was a real possibility of the substantial adverse effects recurring. Applying paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 to the Equality Act 2010 and assessing likelihood from the circumstances prevailing at the relevant time, it concluded that the impairment was long term. The later absence in November 2024 was treated as confirming the identified risk rather than as retrospective evidence used to establish the original likelihood of recurrence.