Charlesworth v Dransfields Engineering Services Ltd

For discrimination arising from disability under section 15 of the Equality Act 2010, the relevant consequence of disability must be an effective cause of the unfavourable treatment. It need not be the sole or main cause, but a mere contextual link or occasion is insufficient.

Whether disability-related absence is an effective cause is a fact-sensitive question. An absence may reveal that an employer can manage without an employee, yet be no more than the setting in which a genuinely independent redundancy reason is identified.

The Claimant, a branch manager, was absent while receiving treatment for renal cancer. During that absence the Respondent identified that it could remove his post, absorb its duties and save approximately £40,000 annually. It subsequently dismissed him for redundancy.

The Sheffield Employment Tribunal dismissed claims for direct disability discrimination, discrimination arising from disability and unfair dismissal. This appeal challenged the dismissal of the section 15 claim, principally on the causation test. The unfair-dismissal appeal was contingent on that challenge succeeding.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Employment Tribunal made no error of law and reached a conclusion open to it when it held that the Claimant's disability-related absence was not an effective or operative cause of his redundancy dismissal.

2. Section 15(1) of the Equality Act 2010 requires two causal connections. There must be something arising in consequence of disability, and the unfavourable treatment must be because of that thing. The latter requirement is met where the thing is an effective cause of the treatment. It need not be the sole or main cause, but it must significantly operate on the decision-maker's mind, consciously or subconsciously. A mere influence which does not amount to an effective cause is insufficient.

3. The Tribunal correctly applied that approach. It accepted that the Claimant's absence arose from disability and gave the Respondent an opportunity to see that the branch could function without his role. However, it was entitled to distinguish that contextual opportunity from a causative reason for dismissal. On its findings, the operative reason was the Respondent's view that the post could be deleted and its duties absorbed; that conclusion could have been reached in other circumstances.

4. The Tribunal's conclusion was not perverse. Disability-related absence will often be an effective cause where it leads an employer to conclude that it can manage without an employee, but that does not prevent a tribunal from finding on particular facts that the absence was only part of the context.

5. Although not affecting the result, the EAT stated that, where justification under section 15(1)(b) has been argued and evidence called, an Employment Tribunal should make substantive findings rather than express a cursory preliminary view. The parties are entitled to fully informed conclusions founded on findings of fact.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: Appeal dismissed. The Tribunal's dismissal of the section 15 claim was upheld.

• Sheffield Employment Tribunal: Judgment promulgated on 16 February 2016. It dismissed the claims for direct disability discrimination, discrimination arising from disability and unfair dismissal.