Golam Chowdhury v Network Rail Infrastructure Limited

Whether a proposed redeployment, trial placement or training is a reasonable adjustment is an objective question for the employment tribunal on the evidence and facts at the relevant time. The tribunal must consider an employer’s assessment of essential role requirements, but need not defer to it.

An appellate tribunal should not interfere with that evaluative judgment, or with a finding about a hypothetical event, unless the demanding perversity threshold is met. A tribunal may rely on its reasonable-adjustment findings when deciding proportionality under Equality Act 2010, section 15, where the practical alternatives and material considerations are the same.

The claimant, a customer service assistant, had plantar fasciitis which prevented prolonged standing and walking. Following sickness absence, a period of helpdesk work and a redeployment search, the respondent dismissed him for capability.

He alleged that reasonable adjustments required redeployment, with or without training, to specified alternative roles, a helpdesk role obtained by moving another employee, or more time before dismissal. He also alleged discrimination arising from disability under section 15 of the Equality Act 2010.

The London South Employment Tribunal dismissed both claims. The claimant appealed its findings on reasonable adjustments and its reliance on those findings when determining proportionality under section 15. He also sought, without a formal application, to add new appeal grounds.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Employment Appeal Tribunal refused permission to add new grounds. New unfair-dismissal and race-discrimination claims had not been advanced below. A new part-time receptionist case would unfairly alter the case on appeal and contradicted unchallenged findings about the claimant’s fitness for work.

2. The tribunal had correctly approached redeployment as a reasonable adjustment. Following Rentokil Initial UK Ltd v Miller, [2024] ICR 873, suitability for an alternative role is objectively determined by the tribunal, not by employer preference. Essential skills, experience and qualifications, and the evidence supporting an employer’s assessment, are relevant considerations. The tribunal independently assessed each role and was entitled to find that the claimant did not meet essential criteria for the data-controller, HR-administrator and stores-co-ordinator roles.

3. The tribunal was also entitled to reject training and a trial placement. The proposed training was vague and could not remedy the claimant’s lack of essential prior experience. The standard three-month review period was not itself an adjustment. On the evidence, the alternative roles were unsuitable for a person who required the role itself to acquire the necessary experience.

4. The challenge to the helpdesk finding failed. A finding of what staff would have done if asked to exchange duties is subject to the same stringent appellate standard as a primary factual finding. The tribunal was entitled to find that helpdesk staff would have refused and, independently, that helpdesk work still required patrol duties which the claimant could not perform.

5. The tribunal was entitled to find that a further postponement of dismissal was not a reasonable adjustment. It could take account of the prolonged absence, uncertain prognosis, limited engagement with redeployment and the cost of continuing to employ someone indefinitely in work not required.

6. For the section 15 claim, the respondent’s aims were legitimate and the only issue was proportionality. Although reasonable adjustments and section 15 justification will not always coincide, they did here. Having assessed all practical lesser measures in the reasonable-adjustment claim, the tribunal could rely on that analysis to conclude that dismissal was proportionate.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: appeal dismissed: [2025] EAT 132.

• London South Employment Tribunal: dismissed claims for failure to make reasonable adjustments and discrimination arising from disability. Its decision was sent to the parties on 11 January 2024, with written reasons sent on 12 April 2024.