Definition of disability

A. No. Your employer is taking a wrong-headed approach to the statutory meaning of disability. It is what your member cannot do as a result of their impairment that matters, not what they can do.

The Equality Act 2010 says someone has a disability if they have a physical or mental impairment that has a “substantial and long-term adverse effect” on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. There is no longer a statutory list of day-to-day activities. Instead, your member needs to be able to produce evidence that their own normal day-to-day activities have been adversely affected.

The EAT in Aderemi v London and South Eastern Railway Limited [2012] UKEAT 0316/12/0612 said normal day-to-day activities are any activities that are not unusual and can include activities mostly carried out at work.

Spending much of the working day standing can certainly qualify as a “normal” day-to-day activity, because many jobs require workers to spend much of the day on their feet.

www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/2012/0316_12_0612.html