Case law: House of Lords ruling on disability discrimination - 26/08/2008

This case concerned a council tenant who sublet the premises in breach of his tenancy agreement. The landlord served a notice to quit and started possession proceedings. The tenant opposed the proceedings on the basis that he was disabled and, in bringing the proceedings, the landlord was discriminating against him.

The House of Lords made some useful observations on the appropriate comparator to be used in assessing whether the treatment of the tenant was discriminatory; it said that it was reasonable to compare the present situation with the situation where a person without a mental disability had acted in the same way as the tenant. As the council would have reacted in the same way in relation to such a person, there was no disability-related discrimination. The court also stated that disability-related discrimination would have required the landlord to have knowledge of the tenant's disability, which in this case it did not.

Although the disability discrimination provisions apply equally to the areas of housing and employment law, it remains to be seen whether the specific findings of this case will be applied in relation to employment claims. In any event, employers remain under a duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled employees.

Related Resources

in the Muckle LLP Resource Centre

• Case law: employee dismissed for being 'too young'
• Case law: less favourable treatment of part-time workers
• Case law: unfair dismissal claim rejected where new terms and conditions imposed unilaterally
• Case law: offer to settle does not invalidate grievance letter