Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police v Jelic
The 1995 Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) requires employers to make reasonable adjustments in order to accommodate disabled people. In Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police v Jelic, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) said that swapping the jobs of two postholders or creating a new post could be a reasonable adjustment.
Basic facts
Following a number of stress-related absences between 2002 and 2004, Constable Jelic was assigned work in the “non-confrontational environment” of the Community Service Desk. This was then amalgamated with other units to form the Safer Neighbourhood Unit (SNU) where his work (which was mainly administrative) was generally held in high regard.
In June 2007 the occupational health advisor wrote a medical report stating that his condition - Chronic Anxiety Syndrome - was likely to have become permanent.
The Disability Liaison Advisor then said that as SNU officers were now required to deal directly with the public, PC Jelic was not fulfilling the requirements of that role. She suggested that, given his status, he should undergo the Unsatisfactory Performance Procedure; be placed elsewhere in the organisation; or be retired on medical grounds. He ended up being retired on medical grounds in May 2008.
PC Jelic claimed disability discrimination, arguing that his disability had been caused as a result of his employment and that the force could easily have made a reasonable adjustment to accommodate it.
Relevant law
Section 18B of the DDA gives a list of examples of certain “steps” that employers can take in order to comply with the duty to make reasonable adjustments. This includes “transferring [the disabled person] to an existing vacancy”.
Tribunal decision
The tribunal agreed with PC Jelic. It said that the police were clearly under a duty to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate his disability and to consider the matter objectively.
The tribunal accepted that it would not have been reasonable to expect the force to keep him in his current position in the SNU, given the changing nature of the role. However, there was no reason why it could not have done a job “swap” between PC Jelic and another constable - PC Franklin - who was capable of doing PC Jelic’s job.
The third and final reasonable adjustment it could have carried out would have been to offer PC Jelic medical retirement, followed by a civilian job.
EAT decision
The EAT essentially upheld the tribunal decision. It said there was nothing in section 18B of the DDA that stopped tribunals from deciding that creating a new job for a disabled employee was a reasonable adjustment, if the particular facts of the case supported that finding.
Nor was there any bar under section 18B against swapping postholders within an organisation. The list, said the EAT, was “illustrative” as opposed to “exhaustive” of the steps that an employer might take.
As the force had failed to consider either of these reasonable adjustments, the tribunal was right to decide that it had discriminated against PC Jelic on the ground of his disability.
Finally, it found that the failure to re-hire him to do a civilian job after his medical retirement could also be a failure to make a reasonable adjustment, but as the tribunal had not fully explained its reasons for this finding, the EAT remitted the issue to another tribunal.