Ridge v Land Registry

In disability discrimination claims, the tribunal must identify the relevant comparator or comparators and assess the claimant’s circumstances against those of a person without the disability in materially similar circumstances. For a reasonable-adjustments claim, it must identify the provision, criterion or practice, any relevant physical feature, the appropriate non-disabled comparators and the substantial disadvantage suffered.

A reasonable adjustment need not cure the claimant’s difficulty. Its function is to reduce the substantial disadvantage caused by the disability. The assessment remains fact-sensitive and must be grounded in the evidence.

The claimant, a disabled software engineer employed by the Land Registry, appealed against an Employment Tribunal judgment which had dismissed most of his disability discrimination claims but awarded compensation for delay in handling his grievance.

The live issues concerned the refusal to apply sick pay at pension rate, retraining on return to work, and removal from an open-plan office. The Employment Tribunal had not properly addressed the claimant’s proposed actual comparators in relation to the discretionary sick-pay system. The appeal therefore raised the proper comparator analysis and whether the tribunal had correctly rejected the two proposed reasonable adjustments.

1. Outcome. The appeal was allowed in part by consent. The issue concerning the discretionary sick-pay system was remitted to the same Employment Tribunal. The findings rejecting the two proposed reasonable adjustments were upheld.
2. Comparators. The Employment Tribunal had misdirected itself by failing to consider the claimant’s list of 49 proposed actual comparators and by attributing an inappropriate set of characteristics to a hypothetical comparator. It was directed first to consider the actual comparators put forward. If it considered a hypothetical comparator, it should assess the circumstances under paragraph 6.2 of the management handbook with and without the disability, using the discarded actual comparators if relevant.
3. Reasonable adjustments. The Employment Tribunal had made significant findings of fact supporting its conclusion that the claimant was not placed at a substantial disadvantage by returning to work without retraining on Business Objects. The claimant accepted that employees returning after comparable absences would not have received such retraining.
4. The claim concerning removal from the open-plan office also failed. The occupational-health evidence did not connect the claimant’s concentration difficulties with the open-plan office, and the relevant meetings had not identified that issue. The tribunal’s typographical errors were corrected. The tribunal had not imposed a requirement that an adjustment cure the problem: the proper question was whether it would reduce the substantial disadvantage caused by the disability.
5. The matter was remitted to the same tribunal because the hearing had lasted four days, much of the judgment remained intact, and there was no loss of confidence in the tribunal’s ability to determine the issue.

• Employment Tribunal: dismissed most of the claimant’s claims, upheld one grievance-related aspect and awarded £1,250 compensation.
• Employment Appeal Tribunal: allowed the appeal in part by consent, remitting the sick-pay comparator issue to the same Employment Tribunal and upholding the remaining relevant findings.