Disability discrimination: university entitled to not allow claimant to return to restricted duties

In Powell v University of Portsmouth [2024] EAT 56 the respondent did not allow the claimant, a Principal Lecturer, to return to work while he could not undertake face-to-face classroom teaching due to suffering unpredictable blackouts. The employment tribunal dismissed the claims of disability discrimination and constructive dismissal and the EAT upheld those findings, in particular concluding that the employment tribunal:

• permissibly had regard to the difficulties the first respondent had experienced in covering the claimant’s teaching when he had previously been on sick leave and had accepted that the assured provision of high-quality teaching was a legitimate aim;
• had been entitled to find that the steps suggested by the claimant (being appointed a support worker to accompany him or returning to more limited research-based duties) did not amount to reasonable adjustments given the claimant’s inability to complete the reduced duties agreed as part of a phased return to work during the summer vacation, taken together with the way in which he had described the debilitating blackouts he continued to suffer and the respondent’s reasonable concerns as to the risks this condition posed to the university and its students and to the claimant himself.

Pro Employment Law

Formed in 2017, following significant legislative changes designed to increase competition within the legal services marketplace, Pro Employment Law is a progressive set of barristers’ chambers, consisting only of experienced employment law barristers, offering a full range of specialist advisory, case management, and advocacy services directly to the public through the Public Access scheme. We supply our legal services exclusively in the area of Employment Law to clients located across England & Wales. All of the legal services we supply are covered by professional indemnity insurance with Bar Mutual.