Veitch Penny LLP - Exeter | Crediton, Devon

Case

Williams v J Walter Thompson Group Limited
Court of Appeal - (17 February 2005)

Issues

(1) Disability discrimination
(2) Arrangements
(3) Constructive dismissal

Facts

Ms Sue Williams, who was totally blind, was experienced in Information Technology. She contacted the Chief Executive of the group of companies the Respondent was part of. She expressed an interest in working for them. During the interview process, they discussed the work she could do and Ms Williams informed them she would need training in a software application used by the company.

Ms Williams subsequently accepted a job offer as an IT Developer, and commenced employment in September 1999. The company was unprepared to manage a blind employee. The equipment she needed was not available. None of the staff had been trained on disability discrimination. Various training and technical issues arose; the software she needed was not delivered until January 2000, and there were problems with its installation. She only received one day’s training and had little work to do. In her view, there was little prospect of her ever being able to use the software she had been originally employed to work on. She ultimately resigned in October 2001.

Ms Williams made a claim at the Employment Tribunal based on direct disability discrimination, failure to make reasonable adjustments and constructive unfair dismissal.

At first instance the Tribunal found that the company had constructively unfairly dismissed Ms Williams and had also acted contrary to Sections 5 & 6 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. The employer’s appeal was allowed by the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT), which led to Ms Williams appealing that decision to the Court of Appeal.

Decision

The appeal was allowed.

It noted that the original Tribunal was correct in reaching the decision it had. By overturning the Tribunal’s decision, the EAT had omitted to consider that the company had employed Ms Williams to do a specific job knowing that she was totally blind and would need to be trained on the relevant software to do the job. Having taken her on in those circumstances, the company had failed to look into the actual cost and time it would take to fully train her for the job. She had not been given work of the kind she had been employed to do or other suitable work instead.

Comments

This case is noteworthy because the Court of Appeal felt that an important point in reaching their decision was that the company had employed Ms Williams knowing of her disability. This would suggest that employers would need to consider the reasonable adjustments required prior to making the offer of employment (at a point when they are unlikely to know litter about the disability, and practically, will be more easily excused for failing to make adjustments). It has been commented that this could mean that fewer disabled candidates would receive job offers, which would clearly be against the social policy aim behind the legislation.