Telling your employer you’re stressed doesn’t prove they knew you were disabled.
“Tribunal and EATStands for Employment Appeal Tribunal. It hears appeals from employment tribunal decisions on points of law, not on the facts. It is not a way of simply asking for a second opinion on the outcome. found the employer had no constructive knowledgeConstructive knowledge means your employer is treated as knowing about your disability if a reasonable employer would have found out, even if nobody actually told them in so many words. It can come fr... of her disability; her claim was dismissed.”
Your employer's duty to make 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... only bites once they know, or reasonably should know, that you are disabled. Vague or shifting descriptions of your symptoms can mean a tribunal finds they never had enough to go on.
- Push for an Occupational Health referral that directly asks whether your condition meets the legal definition of disability and how long it is expected to last, not just whether you are fit for work.
- Keep your own description of your condition consistent and specific across meetings, letters, and sick notes, rather than switching between different labels for what may be one underlying condition.
- If you are facing dismissal or discipline and believe a disability is part of the picture, get advice as early as possible, before the process concludes.
The situation
An employee worked as a court officer for almost 11 years before being dismissed for poor attendance. In her final year she was absent on 20 separate occasions, around 128 days in total, for a mix of reasons including stress, hypertension, and ordinary illnesses like flu and colds. Her employer referred her to Occupational HealthAn independent medical service that employers use to assess how a health condition is affecting your ability to work. A referral to occupational health is not a step toward dismissal, but the report p... and held return-to-work meetings, but the picture they were given kept shifting. Sometimes it was stress, sometimes hypertension, sometimes an unrelated infection. She was later found, in a separate ruling, to have in fact been disabled throughout that period.
What the tribunal found
The tribunal dismissed her disability discrimination claim. The tribunal held that, at the relevant time, nothing available to her employer would reasonably have flagged her as disabled. The employer had done what it reasonably could. It referred her to Occupational Health, met with her, and asked her GP for information. None of that advice confirmed she met the legal definition of disability, and many of her absences were put down to conditions, like flu and colds, that had nothing to do with any long-term impairment. On appeal, the Employment Appeal Tribunal upheld the finding. It was open to the tribunal on the evidence, and involved no error of law.
Donelien v Liberata UK Ltd. UKEAT/0297/14/JOJ. Employment Appeal Tribunal. 16 December 2014.