A disabled IT manager who was treated unfavourably because he often needed to work from home to manage his condition was discriminated against by his employer, a tribunal has found.
Mr Lawton, who had complex regional pain syndrome in his left leg which amounted to a disability, was harassed and discriminated against by director Mr Singh during the latter year of his employment at software firm Crystal Ball, the Liverpool employment tribunal heard.
The company denied that it had discriminated against Lawton because of his disability.
On several occasions in 2019, Lawton arrived at work to find that the lift was out of order. The company’s office was located on the fifth floor and he found it difficult and painful to walk up and down stairs.
He regularly used a crutch to walk around the office, so it was clear to his employer that he had difficulties walking.
The claimant requested to work from home on days the lift was not working. This was agreed, but it was clear from email correspondence seen by the tribunal that Singh was not happy about the claimant working from home and his attitude towards him changed.
The company sought occupational health advice and a list of reasonable adjustments were produced. Singh issued a letter confirming the adjustments, commenting “if you want to go down the legal path that’s fine, I can go legal all day”.
Reasonable adjustments
Reasonable adjustments record for an employee with a disability
He was also claimed to have said that the arrangement was conditional on Lawton meeting a set of objectives and it was pointed out that there were practical implications of facilitating the arrangement long term.
There were several other incidents where Singh was shown to have treated Lawton unfavourably, including telling him that he was too slow when evacuating the building during a fire drill, ignoring him in the office, and comments about him taking lengthy toilet breaks which were related to constipation caused by his medication.
In September 2019, Lawton requested that he be allowed to work from home for at least a couple of days as he had been to hospital because his knee pain had flared up. Singh agreed the request but told him he must provide a detailed list of tasks that he carried out at home – something that had not been asked of another employee who worked one day a week from home. Singh was not happy about the claimant working from home and made a point of requiring him to account for his time.
In November, the respondent took disciplinary action against Lawton because of a security breach of the company’s server. It claimed he had neglected his duties and he was issued with a first written warning. It also launched a disciplinary investigation into claims that Lawton had added documents to his own personnel file, which were upheld.
Lawton resigned from the company in December 2019. He considered the relationship had irrevocably broken down, particularly as there had been a breach of his trust and confidence in the respondent. His reasons for this included disability discrimination, bullying and humiliation, harassment, unfounded allegations of poor performance or misconduct, a failure to provide reasonable adjustments for his disability, being subjected to unreasonable treatment and being forced to work in breach of health and safety law.
The tribunal found that he had been constructively and unfairly dismissed, discriminated against because of his disability, victimised and harassed.
Employment judge Ann Benson said: “Mr Singh was the sole director of his company and in our view although he had been advised that he was required to comply with the Equality Act, he took it upon himself to remind the claimant that this was not something which suited him or the business and was at best an inconvenience to him. This caused the claimant to be unable to be secure in the adjustments which had been agreed with him. We find that [references] to his hours of work and working from home by Mr Singh [were] intimidatory and amounted to unfavourable treatment.”
It found the claimant’s difficulties in coming to the office and his need to work from home, which arose from his disability, were a “significant influence” on the decision to invoke disciplinary action, and that Singh’s motive and manner of doing so were not proportionate.
The tribunal also agreed that Lawton should have been provided with an evacuation chair to use to leave the building in an emergency.
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Compensation will be discussed at a later hearing.
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