United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	THE APPELLANT IN PERSON


 


MR JUSTICE MORISON (PRESIDENT): The purpose of this hearing is to determine whether Mr Harding has an arguable point of law in an appeal which he wishes to maintain against a decision of an Industrial Tribunal which rejected his complaints of unfair dismissal and sex discrimination.

Mr Harding had been employed by the London Borough of Brent for a number of years. He suffers from a severe form of epilepsy and is registered as disabled. He worked in the Authority's disability unit which was then re-organised and closed down. As a result of the decision to close the disability unit down, a member of the Human Resources Unit, by which we mean the personnel unit, was instructed to assist him in finding and securing suitable alternative employment. Detailed evidence was heard the Industrial Tribunal about the attempts which they made, and broadly speaking, the Industrial Tribunal were satisfied that all reasonable attempts had been made to secure suitable alternative employment, but without success.

The simple issue that is raised by this appeal, relates to this point. Mr Harding says that the employers should have recognised his disability and taken special steps to secure his re-employment. What happened was that he was sent for interviews for alternative employment without the manager of the particular individual unit being made aware of the fact that he was disabled. During that period he was undergoing a drugs regime which made him less responsive and less alert than otherwise he normally was, but the prospective manager of the unit would have been unaware that his technical expertise had thus been impaired. If he did not pass the technical interview, then there could be no question of going on for further consideration of all his circumstances and his past performance in his employment. Accordingly, Mr Harding says that the decision that his disability should not have been disclosed at the technical job interview stage, effectively prevented him from ever being offered suitable alternative employment. In that sense, he says, that as a registered disabled person the employers were in breach of their obligation to take special steps to look after him in the employment relationship. He relies on the statement in Seymour v British Airways [1983] ICR 148 at page 154 C-H, in particular the first sentence which says:

"We accept that the employee was entitled to special consideration by his employers because he was both disabled and registered as such. ..."

Mr Harding's contention is that, in those circumstances, special consideration required that the Human Resources Unit should have been taking steps vis-à-vis the managers of the positions which were available to him to make them aware of his disability so that they could take it into account in assessing whether he had displayed sufficient technical competence to go on to the second stage.

On that issue and that issue alone, we are prepared to say that the point is arguable, but we would like to draw attention to the fact that the Industrial Tribunal have considered this matter apparently with great care and were obviously impressed by the help which was given to him by the London Borough of Brent. We form, therefore, no view as to the prospects of success of this appeal, and would not wish to encourage Mr Harding to believe that his appeal will succeed just because we have given leave for it to be argued at a full hearing. It seems to us that it is important that the Employment Appeal Tribunal looks again at the question of disability, even though this case does not fall within the Disability Discrimination Act. Accordingly, we give leave for that matter to be argued at a full appeal and that matter only.

It should be listed as a Category B case, and should be looked at by a High Court Judge. I would estimate it would take half a day to argue.