A missed adjustment has a deadline, even if your employer never says so.
“Court of Appeal: the limitation clock for an inadvertent missed adjustment can start early; claim allowed to proceed.”
If your employer has failed to make a reasonable adjustment you asked for, the three month time limitThe deadline by which you must submit a claim to an employment tribunal. For most claims the limit is three months less one day from the act you are complaining about, and it is strictly enforced. Mis... for a claim can start running from when they should have acted, not from whenever the problem finally comes to a head.
- Do not assume you can complain at any time while an unresolved adjustment issue continues, the clock may already be running even without a clear refusal.
- If weeks have passed with no action on an adjustment you have raised, treat that delay as a trigger to get advice, not as a sign the problem is still fully open.
- Ask a solicitor or adviser to help you work out the likely start date for your time limit as soon as you suspect an adjustment has been quietly dropped.
The situation
A teacher whose right arm had been amputated above the elbow worked at a prison, where he struggled with the prison's heavy doors because of his disability. By a certain point, he said, it was clear his role was unsuitable and his employer should have transferred him to suitable alternative work. His employer moved him to lighter duties for a time, then to gardening leave, but never formally transferred him to different, suitable work. Around a year after the problem became clear, his employment was moved to a different employer as part of an unrelated business transfer, placing him back in a role he says was unsuitable.
What the court found
The Court of Appeal confirmed that failing to make a reasonable adjustment is a legal omission, not an ongoing act you can complain about at any time before it is finally sorted out. An inadvertent failure, something dropped, delayed, or simply overlooked rather than a deliberate refusal, works differently. Two dates can start that three month clock: the point the employer does something that rules the adjustment out for good, or, failing that, the point by which the employer should reasonably have made it if it was ever going to happen. In this case, the court found the relevant date was the point the employee was moved into unsuitable work under the business transfer, so his claim was allowed to proceed. The court was clear, though, that this rule can just as easily produce an earlier, easy to miss cut-off.
Matuszowicz v Kingston upon Hull City Council. [2009] EWCA Civ 22. Court of Appeal. 10 February 2009.