Legal News

The EAT has held that an in situ cancer was automatically a disability within the Equality Act 2010.

Cancer is automatically a disability by virtue of EqA Sch 1 para 6(1).

However the consultant in this case, Lofty v Hamis t/a First Café, bailii.org, had described the claimant’s skin condition as ‘pre-cancerous’. She had lentigo maligna, meaning there were cancer cells in the top layer of skin but they had not started to spread – the cancer was non-invasive.

The EAT held this was ‘cancer’ within the EqA, so the claimant was deemed to have a disability. The court said the Act does not distinguish between invasive and other forms of cancer.

The claimant had been dismissed for her failure to attend meetings to discuss her continued absence from work.

More: Disability: the definition>Conditions automatically covered.