Once your employer knows you’re disabled, they don’t need to know your disability caused what you did for it to be discrimination.
“Employer's knowledge of the disability alone is enough; it need not also know the conduct was disability-related.”
Once your employer knows about your disability, they don't need to also realise it caused what you did for a dismissal to count as discrimination.
- You don't need your employer to admit, at the time, that your disability caused what you did. That link is for a tribunal to decide afterwards, based on the evidence.
- If a disciplinary process follows something that happened while your condition was genuinely affecting you, and your employer already knew about your disability, that connection can still help your case even if nobody raised it at the time.
- A dismissal can be found fair for ordinary unfair dismissal purposes and still be unlawful discrimination, because the two tests ask different questions.
The situation
A teacher at a school run by City of York Council had cystic fibrosis, and the Council had known about it from the start of his employment. Reasonable adjustmentsChanges an employer must make under the Equality Act 2010 for a disabled employee, where without them the employee would be at a substantial disadvantage compared to non-disabled colleagues. What coun... had been agreed early on, but no proper record was kept, and they were lost sight of when a new head teacher took over. His workload increased, and the time-consuming physiotherapy and treatment his condition required left him struggling to keep up. By late 2013 his health, including his lung function, was deteriorating and his stress levels had risen sharply. Over two lessons that November, he showed an 18-rated film to a class of 15 and 16 year olds, intending to use it as a way into a discussion about storytelling. He didn't tell the school or get parental consent first.
What the court found
When the school found out, it brought disciplinary charges and summarily dismissed him for gross misconductBehaviour serious enough that your employer is entitled to dismiss you immediately without notice. Common examples include theft, violence, or serious dishonesty, but what counts depends on your emplo.... He accepted showing the film was wrong, but said it happened because high stress from his condition had clouded his judgement. The Council didn't accept that explanation, or that his remorse was genuine. The Court of Appeal took up his case to settle exactly what an employer needs to know for a dismissal to count as discrimination arising from disabilityA type of disability discrimination under section 15 of the Equality Act 2010, where you're treated unfavourably because of something connected to your disability, like time off or how a condition aff... under section 15 of the Equality Act 2010The main piece of legislation protecting employees from discrimination at work. It covers nine protected characteristics including age, disability, sex, race, and religion, and makes it unlawful for a.... The Council argued it should only be liable if it also knew, at the time, that the specific incident was connected to his disability. The Court of Appeal rejected that. Section 15 asks two separate questions: what caused the unfavourable treatment, and whether that cause arose from the disability, which is a question of fact for a tribunal to decide on the evidence. The only knowledge an employer needs is knowledge of the disability itself. Since the Council indisputably knew about his cystic fibrosis, and the tribunal had already found (unchallenged) that the stress causing him to show the film arose from his condition, that was enough. The Council raised a second argument: that a dismissal found fair under ordinary unfair dismissalA legal claim you can bring if your employer dismissed you without a fair reason or without following a fair process. You normally need two years of continuous employment to qualify, though some dismi... rules must also be lawful under section 15. The Court disagreed. These are different legal tests, and the Council had let his agreed adjustments quietly lapse, undermining any claim that dismissing him was a proportionate response.
City of York Council v Grosset. Case No. A2/2016/4373. Court of Appeal. May 2018.