In Sullivan v Bury Street Capital Limited, from about July 2013, following a split with a Ukrainian girlfriend, S suffered paranoid delusions that he was being followed and stalked by a Russian gang. These delusions affected his timekeeping, attendance and record-keeping. However, things improved after September 2013. But in April 2017 that there was a worsening of the effect of the paranoid delusions on his day-to-day activities. S’s employment was terminated on 8 September 2017, ostensibly for reasons to do with capability and attitude. An ET upheld S’s unfair dismissal claim but rejected his disability discrimination claims because he did not have a disability within the meaning of the Equality Act 2010 as the long-term requirement in the definition of disability in Schedule 1 Paragraph 2 of the Equality Act 2010 was not met. The EAT rejected S’s appeal holding that the ET was entitled to conclude on the medical evidence and observations from S’s colleagues that, although there was a substantial adverse effect in 2013 and again in 2017, in neither case was it likely that the adverse effect would last for 12 months or that it would likely recur. The ET had correctly applied the term “likely” as if it meant “could well occur, as opposed to something that is more likely than not to happen” and had approached the question of the likelihood of recurrence correctly.
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