Discrimination, temporarily gone

It would help to have more information about this. In which city will the hearing be held, for example?

This is hugely relevant for me since I am on my way to trying to prove in the Employment Tribunal that I'm disabled and that my employer should have known about it.

I find it amazing that I had to endure several colleagues punishing me and making fun of me because of my autistic traits, and now the employer is saying that I should not be protected because they claim that I'm not disabled, which would essentially make all the mistreatment ok, even though they mistreated me specifically because of my condition.

I just wish that they would add neurodiversity to the list of protected characteristics, instead of including it within disability, thereby failing to protect people on the spectrum who don't quite fit the definition of disabled. The House of Lords put out a report suggesting this: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201516/ldselect/ldeqact/117/117.pdf (paragraph 57)

There's a reason why people on the spectrum have the largest unemployment rate out of all disabled people. Something needs to be done about all the bullying and unfair treatment. Employers shouldn't be allowed to seek the easy way out by claiming someone isn't disabled.

Please post here about the progress of the hearing. I'm sure I'm not the only one who will follow it with great interest.

Employers will always try and claim that you aren’t disabled in this sort of scenario, because if it is proved it immediately makes a claim of disability discrimination unviable.

As far as I can tell though, given the very traits that are required for a diagnosis of Autism, anyone who is autistic would meet the criteria for a disability under the Equality Act. I certainly had no problem proving to the Employment Tribunal my Asperger’s, depression and anxiety were all disabilities, despite my employer initially arguing that the latter two were not. Therefore, could you possibly explain who on the spectrum you think don’t quite fit the current definition of disability (I just want to understand and help you if I can)?

Thanks for the reply.

I have no idea about the basis for the employer's claim of no disability. Apparently, at this point, the burden of proof is on me and they had me send in an impact statement, in which I claimed two disabilities, Aspergers and a stress-related condition (more severe than just the Aspergers alone) caused by a combination of the Aspergers and the way other people at work treated me on a daily basis. I submitted a statement of several pages describing how the Aspergers makes my life difficult.

I haven't heard back from them yet, and, like you, I am very curious as to how they are going to try to say I'm not disabled. They are apparently even claiming that Aspergers is not a disability, since they already know about my diagnosis.

Because they have said that I'm not disabled, one of my arguments is that even though I didn't disclose my disability right at the beginning of my employment (I hadn't even been diagnosed by that time), they didn't take any notice when I did disclose my disability. They failed to provide reasonable adjustments multiple times (even when they asked me beforehand what reasonable adjustments I requested, and then promised me that they would do what I asked), and now they are saying they never believed I was disabled anyway, so they had no obligation to provide reasonable adjustments. Once I disclosed my disablity, the perception should have been that I was disabled, and the way they treated me should reflected my status as a person with a protected characteristic. They are not medical doctors, and had no expertise whatsoever to make a claim regarding whether I was disabled or not, so I should have been protected as someone perceived to be disabled, until it was proved otherwise.

The funny thing is that their response is full of hypotheticals: "we don't believe there is a disability, but if the tribunal finds that there is a disability, it doesn't count because the employee didn't disclose it on the employment application form, but if the tribunal does find that it was disclosed, we deny everything the employee claims anyway".

If they think they didn't do anything wrong, then why are they so adamant to claim there was no disability, especially when the best scenario for them would be to say that they acknowledge the disability and prove that they did everything right with regard to reasonable adjustments, etc.? It seems as if they are admitting that all did not go properly when their first reaction is to claim no disability, especially when their behaviour after I disclosed the disability suggested very strongly that they did belive there was a disability.

I just think it's disgusting that 1) what they put me through would be ok if they can convince the judge that I have no disability, and 2) they can trick someone into thinking that they acknowledge the disability, and promise reasonable adjustments and then withdraw them at the last minute, and that would be ok as long as they can convince the judge that I have no disability. I think the laws need to be changed so that bullying of any kind is illegal. Nobody should be treated the way they treated me, disabled or not.

The Tribunal did stay my claim, but I’m not sure why they bothered given their recent ruling that my claim can’t be reinstated due to a settlement agreement existing.

But then again, had not the tribunal paused it to start with? That means it was promised to be taken up again if something went wrong with the agreement, right? 

Ok, so in simple words: They claim for you to pay because you wanted to reinstate an old claim, but it was denied. So the fact that the tribunal denied it, makes it ok for the respondents to claim money from you?

Ok, so in simple words: They claim for you to pay because you wanted to reinstate an old claim, but it was denied. So the fact that the tribunal denied it, makes it ok for the respondents to claim money from you?

The Tribunal did stay my claim, but I’m not sure why they bothered given their recent ruling that my claim can’t be reinstated due to a settlement agreement existing.

But then again, had not the tribunal paused it to start with? That means it was promised to be taken up again if something went wrong with the agreement, right?