Peregrine (Deceased) v amazon.co.uk Ltd

An employer’s duty to make reasonable adjustments under Disability Discrimination Act 1995 section 4A depends on actual or constructive knowledge both that the employee is disabled and that the employee suffers the relevant substantial disadvantage because of that disability.

The inquiry is fact-sensitive. The duty is not engaged where the employer could not reasonably have known that the employee’s reported symptoms were linked to the disability, particularly where the employee and treating medical professionals had not identified that link.

The claimant, who had previously undergone surgery for cancer, worked in a physically demanding warehouse role. He later developed back pain and was eventually diagnosed with metastatic bone cancer. He alleged that the respondent had failed to assess risks, obtain occupational-health advice and adjust equipment.

The Employment Tribunal dismissed the reasonable-adjustments claim. Although the respondent was taken to know of the claimant’s earlier cancer and consequent disability, it found that it neither knew nor could reasonably have known that his back symptoms were connected with that cancer. The claimant’s representative appealed. The central issue was whether that finding meant that the statutory duty under section 4A was not engaged.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Employment Tribunal made no error of law in finding that the respondent did not know, and could not reasonably have been expected to know, that the claimant’s back pain was linked to his cancer.

2. The duty under section 4A of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 requires actual or constructive knowledge both that an employee is disabled and that the employee is disadvantaged by that disability in the relevant way. The question was therefore not simply whether the respondent knew of the claimant’s historic cancer. It was whether it knew, or ought reasonably to have known, of the link between that disability and the back condition said to require adjustments.

3. The Employment Tribunal was entitled to find that no such knowledge existed. The claimant himself had attributed the pain to injury or weight-training; medical certificates did not associate it with cancer; and treating doctors did not identify the connection until later. Even after the diagnosis, the connection with the earlier cancer was considered unusual. The Tribunal was entitled to treat this as a factual finding and not to speculate.

4. The claimant was already deemed disabled by reason of cancer under section 6A. Schedule 1 paragraph 8 was therefore not a live issue. The permission-stage concern that paragraph 8 had not been addressed proceeded on an incomplete understanding of the issues determined below.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: appeal dismissed: [2013] UKEAT 0075_13_2008.
• Employment Tribunal: following a five-day hearing at Cardiff, the Tribunal dismissed the reasonable-adjustments claim in reasons sent on 14 October 2012.