UK disability discrimination law and stammering / stuttering
A worker with a stammer was dismissed and claimed disability discrimination. The tribunal held he did not have a disability within the Equality Act. Colleagues said his stammer sounded only slight. The tribunal acknowledged that a stammer may also have hidden effects. However in this case the tribunal did not have sufficient evidence that the … Read more
The EAT held that in deciding whether there is a breach of s.15 EqA (discrimination arising from disability), the dismissal itself is separate from any later internal appeal decision on it. The tribunal claim in this particular case only covered the original dismissal, at which time the employer had no knowledge of the disability. So … Read more
An employment tribunal held that a worker caring for her disabled mother could claim indirect disability discrimination when asked to give up home-working. This was even though it was the mother rather than the claimant who was disabled. However being only a tribunal case, it does not set a precedent. 2021, Employment Tribunal. Full decision: … Read more
The County Court held that organisers of a music concert had breached the reasonable adjustment duty by not arranging BSL interpreters for deaf audience members. 2021, County Court. Summary of judgment: Discrimination in access to events: is there a duty to provide live sign language interpretation at music concerts? (cloisters.com) Facts Three deaf mothers were … Read more
The High Court held that the UK government had failed to make a reasonable adjustment by not providing British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters for two televised Coronavirus data briefings. However for ongoing Coronavirus briefings – given the use of detailed data slides – the court held that “in-screen” BSL interpretation was enough to satisfy the … Read more
This appeal concerned reasonable adjustments for those with mental illnesses detained under the Immigration Act. The Court of Appeal held that the Secretary of State had failed to make reasonable adjustments, such as arranging advocates to assist mentally ill detainees in making representations about decisions to detain them. The court said that as in employment … Read more
The tribunal found the claimant was disabled within the Equality Act, by reason of her stammer and depression. However it held there was no discrimination, so her claim failed overall. 2021, Employment Tribunal. Full decision (pdf, gov.uk). (There are also earlier decisions (gov.uk) on applications to strike out the claim.) Facts The claimant was employed … Read more
The EAT stressed that in assessing whether the effect of an impairment is “substantial” under the Equality Act, the tribunal should start from the statutory wording of whether the effect is more than “minor or trivial”. The Guidance and Code of Practice do not add extra requirements; they should not be read as statutes, and … Read more
The claimant’s employment was terminated without notice due to his alleged “verbal and threatening behaviour towards management” at a meeting. Part of the problem was him speaking loudly and quickly at the meeting – he had a stammer which caused him to do this when trying to communicate under stress. The employment tribunal rejected his … Read more
The employer offered a monthly allowance to people who submitted a disability certificate after a certain date to encourage more people to do so, but not to those who had submitted one before that date. The EU Court held that less favourable treatment of some disabled people compared to other disabled people could be direct … Read more