EAT clarification on what amounts to a disability

The EAT (Employment Appeals Tribunal) has today given judgment in the case of Edmund Nuttall Limited v Butterfield, and given useful guidance on what constitutes a disability under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. The case concerned the definition of disability in the Disability Discrimination (Meaning of Disability) Regulations 1996 (the "1996 Regulations"). The 1996 Regulations state an employee will not be taken to be disabled for the purposes of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 if he suffers from "a tendency to sexual abuse of other persons" or "exhibitionism".

The EAT previously considered the scope of the 1996 Regulations in Murray v Newham CAB [2003]. In that case it ruled that where an exempted condition (in this case a tendency to physical abuse) was not freestanding but arose from a non-exempted condition (in this case paranoid schizophrenia) the employee was still protected by the 1995 Act.