United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR P EPSTIEN (of Counsel) Instructed by: Messrs Allen & Overy Solicitors 1 New Change London EC4M 9QQ


 


JUDGE H WILSON

1. We have been concerned with the Preliminary Hearing of the proposed appeal by the Respondent company against the decision of the Employment Tribunal in December 1999 that in two respects there had been unlawful discrimination under the Disability Discrimination Act against the Applicant in the original proceedings.
2. In the preliminary hearing the proposed appellant has been represented by Mr Epstein who has advanced detailed submissions concerning the two matters which were upheld against the company by the Employment Tribunal. The background facts of the matter were that the Applicant had complained of disability discrimination against him, in respect of the consequence of his continuing side effects following successful treatment for colonic cancer. These effects are controlled by a careful routine. His work involves travel from time to time and he has to time his flight times to accord with medication requirements, in order to minimise the side effects.
3. In February 1998 the Applicant was required to fly to Munich and the original flight arranged was at 11.35am, which was within the period that was suitable for his condition. The time was then altered twice; first to 8.30 am and then to 7.45am. Those times were well outside the range of acceptable times should have been impossible for him to accommodate, although in fact he did do so. He notified the Travel Agents however, and for that he received a critical memorandum from his Line Manager. Thereafter he evoked the grievance procedure without satisfactory result and indeed he has since been on sick leave because of stress.
4. In their appearance, the Respondent Company said that they did not know the importance of timing, so far as travel arrangements were concerned because the Applicant had not told them until after the Munich incident. That however is contrary to the finding of fact by the Tribunal at paragraph 5 (vi) which referred to their findings concerning a disability audit, carried out by the Respondent company and involved a questionnaire. In response to the question whether he was registered disabled he had said yes for the purposes of parking and driving. There was a question then as to whether the disability caused problems at work and he ticked the answer yes and in answer to the question: Has the problem been resolved? He replied to the effect that tiredness and frequent bowel motions couldn't be resolved. He also said that the company doctor and nurse are aware of this. There was no follow up by the company after the submission of that questionnaire.
5. Elsewhere in the very detailed and lengthy decision by the Tribunal which runs to 20 pages of A4 typedscript there are set out correctly the principles of law to be applied and the proper sequence of questions to be answered. There are also detailed findings of fact which, in our view, indicate that the complaints made against the decision would have no reasonable chance of success even were they to be argued more fully than they had been today, when the matter has taken well over the 1 hour normally scheduled for preliminary hearings. Accordingly, we do not think there is any reasonable prospect of success for this appeal and we dismiss it at this stage.