Have you been dismissed? Are you disabled?
If you’re disabled and it impacts on your work, your employer should make reasonable adjustments for you. This includes understanding if your disability affects your behaviour.
Here’s the story of an employee who was awarded nearly £270,000 when she was unfairly dismissed for a behaviour triggered by her medical condition.
Miss S Austin worked as a clerical officer at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. She suffered from the chronic pain condition, fibromyalgia, as well as depression and anxiety.
These conditions interfered with her ability to work, and led her to check her medical records repeatedly. She also checked her mother’s medical files on three occasions.
Her behaviour was against Trust rules, so her employer commenced an investigation. However, the investigation caused Miss Austin further anxiety, and she pestered her line manager for information about it.
As a result, she was suspended in 2015 and dismissed in 2017. She’d been there since 1992.
Miss Austin brought a claim for breach of contract, disability discrimination and unfair dismissal.
For the next two years, she applied for around 50 jobs, but was unsuccessful because she “performed badly at interview”, not helped by the fact that her employer had given her an “inaccurate and misleading reference”.
What happened?
The Leeds employment tribunal found that Miss Austin’s behaviours arose from her longstanding pre-existing conditions. Given the circumstances, being suspended and dismissed were not proportional responses by her employer. Also, her dismissal breached her contractual right to notice.
As a result, Miss Austin was awarded nearly £270,000.
What this means to you
If you’re disabled and you breach a disciplinary policy at work, your employer needs to understand whether there’s a link between your disability and your behaviour.
If they sanction you for something that’s caused by your disability, could bring a claim against them.
Further reading
For more information on this subject, you might find our other articles useful:
- Disability discrimination: What you need to know
- My employer will not help with my disability
- Can I bring a discrimination claim?
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