The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has found that the Employment Tribunal (ET) did not err in law in rejecting a postman’s complaints of discrimination because of something arising in consequence of disability and unfair dismissal.
The man had been employed as a postman since 2004. From 2012 he had suffered from stress, anxiety and depression, which his employer accepted amounted to a disability under Section 6 of the Equality Act 2010.
On 5 October 2019, he had reported to the delivery office but refused to start his delivery round. He was alleged to have been abusive to a manager, after which the resource manager went to speak to him. He again refused to undertake his duties and said that he felt like killing himself. After leaving the delivery office, he posted comments on Facebook which were seen by colleagues and which were deemed to be unacceptable. On his return to work two days later, he was invited to a meeting with the resource manager, who informed him that he was being suspended due to the Facebook comments. He behaved aggressively toward the resource manager.
Following a disciplinary hearing, he was summarily dismissed. He appealed against the decision to dismiss him. An occupational health report was prepared, expressing the opinion that his medical condition did not explain his conduct, and his appeal was rejected. He subsequently brought a number of complaints in the ET, including complaints of unfair dismissal and discrimination because of something arising in consequence of disability. After the ET rejected his claims, he appealed to the EAT.
He asserted that what he had said, and the Facebook comments, must necessarily have been something that arose in consequence of his disability. The referral to occupational health had not mentioned that he had said he felt like killing himself, so the report was fundamentally undermined and could not be relied upon as evidence of whether his behaviour had arisen in consequence of disability.
However, the EAT could see no error of law in the decision reached by the ET on the evidence before it. A referral for an occupational health report did not need to set out everything that had happened: it was generally for the person attending the assessment to explain any detail of what had occurred that was missing from the referral and to describe their symptoms.
As well as finding that his conduct was not something arising in consequence of disability, the ET had concluded that his dismissal was a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate objective. As that decision had not been challenged on appeal, his discrimination complaint would have failed in any event.
In view of the findings relating to his discrimination complaint, there was no basis to challenge the ET’s rejection of his unfair dismissal complaint on the grounds that his dismissal was because of something arising in consequence of disability.