AIBU to consider legal action after dismissal for long-term sickness?

[KittyCoo]

I’ve been dismissed from my job today due to long term sickness since August last year. I have crohns, ASD, and very severe OCD. I have intrusive thoughts and last summer I declared these to my boss who completely misunderstood me and was worried I’d act on these thoughts shock I told her they caused me immense distress.

Last month, I was confident I’d be able to return to work as I’m finally having CBT and on the right medication, now on an SSRI combined with an anti psychotic. My boss was supporting my return. But then a week later she decided to place me on medical suspension without any prior warning because occ health deemed me unfit to work due to my OCD still taking up a lot of my day. I then fed this back to my line manager saying I’ll beat this decision as in prove occ health wrong and that I am indeed fit for work. She arranged a meeting with me to discuss suspension and she knew my union rep was on annual leave but decided to go ahead with it anyway!!!

They dismissed me due to long term sickness and not taking into account what’s working well with my mental health!! I’m looking at finding a solicitor as I believe this is unfair dismissal due to my disabilities under the Equality Act 2010. I’ve contacted a few and had a few quotes back.

AIBU by wanting to take legal action and sue them because my OCD is deliberating and because of my ASD I have different communication styles that they’ve completely misunderstood. Do you think this is unfair dismissal ?

im so traumatised by it all and im worried ill be made homeless and have my property repossessed as I’ll have no money and won’t be able to find a future job

I worked with a lady who was off for months for cancer treatment.
Would you tell her that she should be thinking about her work collegues picking up the slack? No, because that is up to managment to sort, and no one off sick should be made to feel bad about being off.
But I am assuming that people off with MH should be treated different. I would be very happy to be corrected on that.

Tell us exactly why your boss thinks you are dangerous?

So

youve been off 7 months. OH say you’re unfit for work. You admit there’s no end in sight. What exactly do you think your employer has done wrong? Why should they keep you employed?

OP, I know being dismissed is really distressing, but if Occ Health have said you are unfit to return to work, that would mean they don’t think there are any reasonable adjustments your employer can make, and it’s highly likely your employers will have taken legal advice. Acting on the advice of Occ Health is perfectly reasonable, and a GP note declaring you fit to work wouldn’t overturn that. Speak to your Union, but if you are worried about money I wouldn’t waste money on employment lawyers, your union will have access to legal advice they can take for you.

I am most definitely NOT mistaken. YOU on the other hand are 100% wrong in almost everything you have posted.

There is no defence for direct discrimination ie sacking someone because they are disabled. For that the employee would need to demonstrate less favourable treatment compared with a non disabled actual or hypothetical comparator.

However the other forms of disability discrimination ie indirect, discrimination arising from disability and failure to make reasonable adjustments most definitely can be justified as long as the action taken is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

Go educate yourself before making a fool of yourself further

Have you contacted union? They may offer legal help.

Isn’t Aug nine months ago?

To add it’s hugely unlikely a direct discrimination claim would succeed unless the employee could provide a comparator who had been off for months with no prospect of return but hadn’t been dismissed.

It was my union who saved my job for 2 years (a 2 year final warning). Boss wanted to sack me, and the union came to the rescue.
I was sacked in the end, and that was also miss handled (I could not do overtime), but at the time I did not have the energy to fight it.
I really loved my job too.

“Unlimited gimmes”? What a disgusting thing to say

I have a couple of issues with how this has been handled by the employer. Firstly if OP's union rep wasn't available and she said she wanted them at any meeting then the meeting should have been postponed until they were available, especially if it was because she was just on holiday.

Secondly I do have an issue with OH in general. I had an OH report done regarding my ADHD, and I could have written it directly from Google's AI summary you get at the start of a search. There was a list of things that can help with some people, but were totally inappropriate to my circumstances e.g. having a fidget toy is useless if you have both hands on the keyboard and mouse all the time. And having said I have major issues working away from the office, suggesting the option to WFH was also not really useful! Clearly hadn't listened to what I was saying in our meeting and just trotted out the "standard" list rather than considering my issues.

There's also the issue that my senior manager clearly has little or no understanding of ADHD, e.g. how you genuinely don't realise you're getting over excited about something so can't self-regulate.

You have been on long-term sick leave and have now had a medical assessment from an Occ Health doctor which says that you are not fit to return (ever? within a reasonable timeframe?). Your employer has therefore terminated your employment on grounds of capacity.

What part of that is illegal?

I think the only way you could possibly have an unfair dismissal case is if the Occ Health report said something like you’re not fit to return now, but you will be in (for example) three months, and they dismissed you, and you might argue that three months isn’t that long and they should have held the job open for that time.

By the way, I don’t agree with your comments about the manager having arranged the meeting purposely for a time when your union rep was on leave. The union would have arranged for someone else to assist you if you’d asked.

It’s not, but it’s a reasonable factor for the employer to take into account ie the need to free up headcount so they can take on someone else.

How long have you been employed there OP?

7 months. Bloody hell, let it go, you can't expect the company to pay you forever.

I think sometimes with mental illness, as depressing as it is, people aren't fit for certain kinds of work and there's no way round that.

Anyway even if OP raised a claim chances are she won’t get a hearing until around 2029, so that’s not going to help her pay her mortgage. The ET system is in meltdown, and a factor is people following the misinformation and ill educated “advice” trotted out by people like certain posters on here.

Mental illness is really hard to accommodate for in the workplace.

7 months isn’t long. I’ve had numerous long periods of time off sick in the past 30 years (1 year, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 3 years)

I’d speak to the union and get some good legal advice then seriously consider the likelihood that this will be worth it. It does seem like they could have followed procedures and so you would not be entitled to anything.

Law suits can cause mental health issues for people who endure them even when they’re mentally well to begin with. It wouldn’t be good for your mental health to worsen and for you to be financially worse off.

Are you surprised it's freaked your manager out though. OCD properly sucks but the only people you should tell.your intrusive thoughts to is your therapist. As I keep telling my kid.

If someone doesn't understand OCD and there's someone telling them they get urges to kill. Then they're going to get swerved.

It sounds as if you're not ready to work atm.

You’ve been assessed as being unfit for work. As a result, your work have dismissed you. Sounds fair enough to me.

I'd have a chat with acas first op and let them assess your case ,
Bluntly the fact that you've been off for over 6 months already might weaken it. They only need to show that they,have made reasonable adjustments . These are things like extra breaks. Your own office , an adjusted chair or desk, if what you say you need to return falls outside the scope of what is deemed to be reasonable . it doesn't require them to leave your job open indefinitely.
you absolutely need specialist advice but please don't proceed against legal advice as it will just cost you money.

It's almost like cancer and OCD aren't the same illness

So you’ve been paid for 30 years and only worked 20? Holy hell.