Madani Schools Federation v Uddin

For discrimination arising from disability under Equality Act 2010, section 15(1)(a), a tribunal must identify separately, for each act of unfavourable treatment, the employer’s subjective reason for that treatment. It must then determine objectively whether that reason was something arising in consequence of disability.

A general connection between disability, sickness absence, a phased return and later treatment is insufficient. The tribunal must distinguish the factual context from the matter which actually caused the treatment. Failure to conduct that separate, two-stage analysis may be a material error of law where it could have affected the result.

The claimant, a PE instructor with a disability caused by work-related stress and anxiety, brought claims for unfair dismissal and discrimination arising from disability. The Employment Tribunal upheld the unfair-dismissal claim and five of six complaints under section 15 of the Equality Act 2010.

The school appealed only the section 15 findings. The Tribunal had treated the claimant’s absence, phased return to work, suspension and dismissal as sufficiently connected to his disability. The central issue was whether the Tribunal had applied the correct causation approach to each complaint of unfavourable treatment.

1. Appeal allowed. The Tribunal’s findings on complaints (2) to (6) under section 15 could not stand. Those complaints were remitted for reconsideration by a fresh Employment Tribunal.

2. Under section 15(1)(a) of the Equality Act 2010, the Tribunal had to identify the particular unfavourable treatment and determine what caused it. The relevant question was the reason in the mind of the employer’s representative. That reason need not have been the sole or main cause, but it had to have had a significant influence on the treatment.

3. The Tribunal then had to decide whether that identified reason was something arising in consequence of disability. This was an objective factual inquiry. The causal chain might contain more than one link, but a longer chain made the requisite connection harder to establish.

4. The Tribunal erred by considering all five complaints together. It did not identify the subjective reason for each act of treatment and did not clearly separate the question of what caused the treatment from the question whether that cause arose from disability. A broad conclusion that everything stemmed from disability and a phased return risked confusing background context with causation.

5. The error was material. On separate analysis, the reasons for the disciplinary letter, the requirement to work outside PE, the suspension, its continuation and dismissal might have been incompetence, an unresolved workplace dispute, or refusal to comply with an instruction. It was not clear that those reasons arose in consequence of disability. The section 15 complaints were therefore remitted for fresh determination, with any necessary further findings and limited further evidence.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: allowed the school’s appeal against the section 15 findings and remitted complaints (2) to (6) to a fresh Employment Tribunal: [2016] UKEAT 0194_16_2411.
• Employment Tribunal, Leicester: in a judgment sent on 20 October 2015, upheld unfair dismissal and five disability-discrimination claims. The school appealed only the section 15 findings.