J Goodwin v The Patent Office [1999] IRLR 4 (EAT)
The recent decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal in Goodwin v The Patent Office goes some way towards dispelling concerns as to how the narrow and rigid definition of disability in the Disability Discrimination Act will be applied by the Tribunals.
Mr Goodwin was dismissed from his job as a patent examiner following complaints about his erratic behaviour at work. He had been diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, and his evidence was that he suffered from hallucinations, had difficulty concentrating and misinterpreted the words of his work colleagues in a paranoid way.
The issue that the Employment Tribunal had to address was whether these symptoms could be regarded as having a substantial effect on his day-to-day activities so as to satisfy the definition of disability in the Act.
Adopting a literal interpretation of the words in the Act, the Tribunal appear to have been influenced by Mr Goodwin's evidence that he was managing to live alone at home without assistance. On this basis, they concluded that his health problems could not be regarded as "substantially" affecting his ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.
Overturning the decision, Mr Justice Morrison in the EAT makes a number of important observations. Referring to the need for Tribunals to adopt an inquisitorial role in disability cases, he emphasises the fact that many people with disabilities underplay their disability, and that this may work to their detriment in presenting a case. Indeed, it may precisely be a symptom of their condition that they deny it. The Act should therefore be viewed in its social context and a purposive approach to its interpretation should be adopted.
The point of such an approach is that the Code of Practice and Guidance acquire a particular importance, in that they illustrate the intention of Parliament in passing the Act. In this case, the Tribunal made no reference in their decision to either Code or Guidance.
The particular provision of the Code which may have made a difference in Mr Goodwin's case is paragraph 14 of the Guidance which refers to the World Health Organisation's International Classification of Diseases : The EAT make the point that if the condition is listed ( as was Mr Goodwin's) then that would be likely to determine the issue.
Addressing the other components of the definition of disability in the Act, the EAT also place particular emphasis on the fact that the person's ability to carry out the day-to-day activities has to be impaired: the fact that they can in fact carry them out, albeit with difficulty, does not mean that their ability is not impaired.
The Appeal Tribunal therefore conclude, not unsurprisingly, that the Tribunal was wrong to focus on the fact that Mr Goodwin could cope unaided at home, and to assume from this that he therefore fell outside the definition of disability in the Act. The evidence was that Mr Goodwin was unable to hold a normal conversation, behaved strangely at times and had significantly impaired concentration. All this clearly pointed, on a broad and purposive interpretation of the Act, to his being disabled under the law.
The effect of this decision is to emphasize that Tribunals should always be mindful of the purpose of the Act - to provide some protection for disabled people. The alternative would be to follow the fine detail of the wording with the effect that a person who would normally be regarded as disabled is deprived of any protection. The decision is a welcome contrast to the sometimes pedantic interpretation of the Act that has characterized so many Tribunal decisions.