Discrimination arising from disability

This is a different claim from being treated badly because of the disability itself. 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... covers something wider and, in practice, more common: being treated unfavourably because of something that arises as a consequence of your disability, even where the disability itself was never the stated reason.

What the law actually asks

The test has two parts. First, were you treated unfavourably because of something connected to your disability, rather than because of the disability directly? Second, did your employer know, or ought they reasonably to have known, that you were disabled?

City of York Council v Grosset confirmed something important about that second part: your employer only needs to know about the disability itself. They don’t need to have realised, at the time, that a specific incident was connected to it. Whether that connection genuinely exists is a question a tribunal works out afterwards, from the evidence, not something your employer needs to have spelled out or agreed to in the moment.

A promise of support that goes nowhere can be part of your case

Bell v Ultima Furniture Systems shows how this plays out in practice. An employer recognised that an employee needed an 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... referral, then never arranged it. Training that had been promised didn’t happen either. Six months later, in a meeting lasting twenty-three minutes, she was dismissed for performance.

The tribunal found the dismissal was 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.... Her mistakes were, at least in part, a consequence of her conditions, and dismissing her wasn’t proportionate when the employer’s own identified next step had never been tried. The tribunal went further and called the dismissal meeting a “sham,” since the decision had clearly been made before it started.

What to do if you think your disability was really behind what happened

Raise the connection early, and in writing, rather than waiting to see what happens first. If you believe a specific difficulty, a lapse in judgement, or a pattern of absence is genuinely linked to your condition, say so at the time, not only once a decision has already gone against you.

Get medical evidence that addresses the specific issue, not just confirmation that you have the condition. A letter that only names your disability doesn’t do the same work as one that explains how it affected your judgement, concentration, or behaviour on the occasion that matters.

If your employer identified support you needed, such as an occupational health referral or extra training, and then let months pass without acting on it, keep a written record of that gap. As Bell v Ultima shows, that delay can become part of what makes a later dismissal discriminatory.

If you’re not sure whether your disability meets the legal threshold in the first place, our guide on what counts as a disability in law covers that question. If the issue is really about whether your employer should have adjusted something rather than punished you for it, our guide on the duty to make reasonable adjustments covers that ground instead.