Perceptions of mental illness

Summary:

Two cases at the EAT demonstrate the difficulties the courts have in deciding mental health disability discrimination cases. Both allude to an as-yet unresolved issue of ‘perceived disability discrimination’, and one makes clear that a GP’s opinion must not be disregarded in favour of a specialist’s report.

THE Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) held in J v DLA Piper UK LLP that the employment tribunal (ET) was wrong to underrate the evidence of a GP because she was not a specialist, and had made ‘a perverse finding’ on whether J’s past depression was covered by the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA)1. But it refused to deliberate whether J…

John Ballard is editor of Occupational Health [at Work].

Author: Ballard J

Tags case law dda - disability discrimination act disability

Occupational Health at Work August/September 2010 (vol. 07/2) pp3

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