Obese Employee Disabled Under Discrimination Law

The Employment Appeal Tribunal has confirmed in a recent case that whilst obesity itself is not considered to be an “impairment” for disability discrimination purposes, if the individual suffers from a number of physical and mental conditions then it is possible that they could be classed as being disabled. Therefore, the duty on an employer to make reasonable adjustments to the employee’s role could arise. Reema Jethwa from our Employment Team looks at the case in further detail.

In the case of Walker v Sita Information Networking Computing Ltd, Mr Walker suffered from a number of different conditions such as asthma, dyslexia, joint problems, depression, diabetes, poor concentration and chronic fatigue syndrome. The combination of these various conditions resulted in him suffering significantly in his day-today life. As the Employment Tribunal was unable to attribute the symptoms to a single recognisable physical or mental clause, the Employment Tribunal regarded