Cheltenham Borough Council loses 'deceit' case
Peter Crush, 16 June 2009
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2 comment's on this article.Cheltenham Borough Council says it is considering whether to appeal, after it yesterday lost a High Court case against its former managing director, Christine Laird.
Laird was hired in 2002, but left in 2005 on full pay citing ill-health brought on by stress. The council claimed Laird had deceived the council by not fully informing it of her previous history of depressive illness. Andrew North, Cheltenham's current CEO said: "Had the council known Mrs Laird's medical history, it would most probably not employed her and incurred the costs it has." The council was suing Laird for £1million.
Cheltenham Borough Council now has seven days to decide whether to appeal against the verdict.
In the High Court Mr Justice Hamblen rejected the council's plea that Laird had "misrepresented and misstated her fitness for employment" on her application form. Instead he accepted Laird had given accurate information about her past.
Huw Rolant Jones, partner at international law firm Eversheds said: "It is not uncommon for employers to take disciplinary action against employees if they discover employees who have been less than truthful or outright dishonest in any applications, often leading to dismissals. But employers have to be mindful that in so doing they do not commit an act of unlawful discrimination against the employee, particularly where sickness and disabilities are in issue."
Mark Brown, editor of mental health magazine, One in Four, said the case "speaks of a dilemma faced by people with mental health difficulties - do I tell or not."
The Employer's Forum on Disability (EFD) says mental health should be treated as a disability rather than an illness, in which case it can be covered by the Disability Discrimination Act.
EFD's legal director, Bella Gor, said: "Cheltenham was going down the fraud route, but the courts would have had difficulty on discrimination grounds, so we welcome the decision. Had Cheltenham won we think it would have backfired, as even fewer people would be likely to disclose their medical history. But our stance is also this: why are these questions being asked in the first place? There is no need for an employer to know about previous conditions that may have happened in the past. They should only be allowed to ask questions necessary for the role being applied."
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Pippa Jones - 16 June 2009
Bella Gor has a point. In Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Portugal and the Netherlands pre employment questionnaires are prohibited. In the United States employers cannot ask people if they have a disability until after a job offer has been made.
On the other hand, reports indicated that Mrs Laird was still taking anti-depressants all the time she was employed at Cheltenham.
John Picken - 16 June 2009
I haven't read the full judgement of this case but the decision seems to have rested on Mrs Laird answering 'Yes' to the question do you normally enjoy good health and 'No' to the question do you have a mental impairment.
The judge had no reason to believe that Mrs Laird answered both of these vague and subjective questions fraudulently or negligently.
Was this really the extent of Cheltenham Borough Council's assessment of Mrs Laird's health and fitness for running their organisation and on which they based their decision to employ her? They have said that they would not have employed her if they had known her medical history.
For such a senior role, spending a couple of hundred pounds on a full face to face medical assessment should have given them the facts they needed. The judge has held that she was not suffering from an impairment under the terms of either the mental health or disability discrimination acts. They need not have employed her in the first place saving them both huge financial and emotional cost.
John Picken www.shandwell.com
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