Specific things to consider in your disability related harassment claim

Laying out your claim

When you are claiming harassment based on disability at Tribunal, you want to clearly argue that you have been subjected to unwanted conduct related to a disability (whether or not you are disabled yourself). This needs to have the purpose or effect of violating your dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for you. 

Some examples of harassment related to disability are:

• An employee’s colleagues make hurtful and offensive remarks about their autistic child.
• A worker with a hearing impairment is verbally abused because he wears a hearing aid.
• An employee who is a wheelchair user is regularly sworn at and called names by colleagues at work because of their disability.

With disability harassment, your employer can be liable for the acts of its employees, as well as the employees being personally responsible. 

Proving your claim

You don’t need to attach evidence to a Tribunal ET1 claim, but it’s a good idea to back up your claims by mentioning the evidence you intend to use. For harassment on the basis of disability claims, people typically refer to evidence such as text messages, emails, letters, meeting notes, medical evidence and witness evidence.

What you can ask for in your harassment based on disability claim

If you’re successful in a Tribunal claim, you will be awarded a “remedy”. This mainly includes financial compensation, like loss of earnings. It can also include some non-financial remedies too.

Common remedies people ask for at Tribunal

Some of the key remedies you can ask for at Tribunal are:

• The money you have lost from being out of work, or working in a lower-paid job.
• The money that you expect to lose in the future from being out of work, or working in a lower-paid job.
• Wages that you are owed, including holiday pay and notice pay.

Discrimination-specific remedies

As well as the common remedies that you can ask for, discrimination-specific claims also have the option to include an “injury to feelings” remedy. This is compensation which you can be awarded when you have been hurt or distressed because you have been discriminated against.

Injury to feelings is generally awarded within one of three “Vento bands” depending on severity.

For example, Taegan was awarded £10,800 plus interest for injury to feelings after she was successful in a number of claims, including a claim for disability harassment. The disability harassment happened when she was sent her P45, effectively dismissing her with no process, when she had been off sick for over a year with depression. 

Real disability harassment cases you can learn from

Summary: during a meeting, a Deputy Manager said to an employee that "you will not get special treatment just because of your mental health".

Total award: unknown, as the parties reached a settlement on the amount 

Outcome: the Tribunal found that this was harassment related to disability. She was also successful in an unlawful deduction from wages claim.

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Summary: an employee who was blind in one eye was mocked by a colleague. The colleague squinted and made funny eyes with reference to her, in order to get others at work to laugh at her.

Total award: £11,218.20 for the harassment aspect

Outcome: the Tribunal found that this was harassment related to her disability. She also succeeded in claims for both wrongful and unfair dismissal.