Employment Law

(i) In a claim under the Disability Discrimination Act 2005, the “impairment” may be an illness or may result from an illness; it is not necessary to consider the cause of it. A tribunal is entitled to regard as disabled someone who suffers from a combination of impairments with different effects, to different extents, over periods of time which overlap.

(ii) If a hearing is to be fair, each party must be aware of the principal allegations to be made by the other, and have a reasonable opportunity of meeting them. However, no formal amendment of the ET1/ET3 is required where a party is simply seeking to resolve an existing confusion or to clarify what has already been said.

Thus, if another incident is complained of in a discrimination case beyond those the facts of which have already been outlined, an amendment will usually be necessary. In other cases, however, what is required is expansion of that which has already been said. If, reasonably viewed, this puts the opposite party at a disadvantage, the tribunal will consider whether or not to grant an adjournment, which might well resolve any prejudice. The focus must be on whether or not a fair trial of the issues (as expanded) can take place.