Supreme Court gives priority to wheelchair users on buses

The Supreme Court decision on bus company’s duties to wheelchair users strikes a “balance” between the law and real-life practicalities, a leading discrimination law solicitor has said.

The case of FirstGroup plc v Paulley [2017] UKSC 4 arose from an incident in 2012 on a bus from Wetherby to Leeds, where a woman with a sleeping child in a buggy refused to move to allow wheelchair user, Doug Paulley, to take her place. The woman said her buggy would not fold. Paulley sued for unlawful discrimination on the grounds of disability.

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that wheelchair users must be given priority to designated wheelchair spaces on buses. However, the judgment stops short of requiring drivers to eject passengers who refuse to move.

Makbool Javaid, partner at Simons, Muirhead & Burton, said FirstGroup, as a public service provider, has a legal duty to make “reasonable adjustments” to avoid substantial disadvantage to disabled persons.

Javaid said the Supreme Court made it clear that FirstGroup cannot be criticised for its notice, “Please give up this space for a wheelchair user”, as there was no legal requirement for the notice to be stated in more forceful terms, in fact there is evidence that “directive” notices communicate less effectively with the public.

“The ruling seems to me to provide a balance between the practical reality of the situation and enforcing the law—see para 68 of the judgment, which says, ‘Because circumstances can vary so much, and because judges should plainly not impose a policy which is not practicable’,” he said.

“Therefore the key aspect of the ruling in Paulley’s favour was that it was simply not enough for FirstGroup to instruct its drivers simply to request non-wheelchair users to vacate the space and do nothing further if the request was rejected. So what should a driver be expected to do?”

There is no suggestion that a driver should force unco-operative passengers off the bus—the Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeal was right to reject this. An absolute rule that non-wheelchair users must vacate the space would be unreasonable in many circumstances. Javaid says the Supreme Court go on to say that even a qualified rule, that the space must be vacated where reasonable, implemented through mandatory enforcement would be likely to lead to confrontation with other passengers.

Javaid says, however, that the Supreme Court provides clarity on what action a driver should take: they can take no further action than a request to move if it seems the non-wheelchair user is being reasonable; and, if they think the person occupying the space is being unreasonable, they can rephrase the request as a requirement and then stop the bus for a few minutes to pressurise the person to move.