A letting agent working for a Home Counties estate agency has lost his claim of disability discrimination following an Employment Tribunal hearing.

Chancellors employee and former soldier Caleb Ellis told the tribunal that he was disabled following a serious road traffic accident in 2019 involving multiple injuries including concussion and that he suffered consequently bouts of anxiety, depression, PTSD and disturbed sleep.

He visited his GP to seek a remedy, reporting that his mother’s cancer diagnosis and ‘stress related to work as an estate agent’ had made his anxiety and depression worse.

During his absence from work the claimant presented a series of ‘fit notes’, all of which described the medical issue as being road traffic injuries.
In March 2020 Ellis said he was ready to return to work and said he was keen to take up a Property Manager role within the company.

Mental impairment

But soon afterwards his employment with the company was terminated but found alternative employment with a sports club chain as a swimming pool lifeguard.

He subsequently took the company to an Employment Tribunal. But Judge Alliott, in a decision that followed a recent hearing, said: “On the evidence that has been presented before me, I have come to the conclusion that the claimant did not have a mental impairment during the relevant time.

Alliott did not find that the claimant’s symptoms caused a substantial adverse effect on his ability to undertake day to day activities, and that his post-crash symptoms were unlikely to be long-term, and that much of the alleged impact set out in his impact statement was exaggerated.

“Consequently, I find that the claimant was not disabled within the meaning of the Equality Act at all relevant times between 30 November 2019 and September 2020,” he concluded.

Read the judgement.

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