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Article

14 Mar 2018

Author:
Howard Beckett, The HR Director (UK)

UK: Employment tribunal rules unfair dismissal of workers diagnosed with any form of cancer amounts to disability discrimination

"Landmark legal case on disability discrimination", 11 Mar 2018

The case involves...Christine Lofty who worked at First Café in Norwich for 14 years.  In March 2015 a lesion on her face was diagnosed as pre-cancerous...form of melanoma...While Mrs Lofty was on sick leave her employer Sadek Hamis...dismissed her in December 2015.  Unite Legal Services took a legal case on behalf of Mrs Lofty for unfair dismissal and discrimination arising from disability under section 15 of the Equality Act 2010...[W]hile Mrs Lofty won her claim for unfair dismissal the claim for discrimination was dismissed...The employment tribunal...adjudicated that since Mrs Lofty was considered cancer free by September 2015 following successful early treatment, she had never had cancer...Unite appealed the case to the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT)..., the appeal was heard in January 2018 and found in favour of Mrs Lofty.  The EAT decision, which is legally binding and will apply to other employment tribunal cases across the UK, agreed...that pre-cancer is a form of cancer and therefore Mrs Lofty was deemed to be disabled at the point of diagnosis, which is when the Equality Act becomes relevant, rather than at the point of dismissal.  All forms of cancer are given legal protection from discrimination under the Equality Act...