Disabled women and reasonable adjustments at work: new ruling

[BridgetYourFortyDaysAreUp]

Disabled women in the workplace take note: new ruling about reasonable adjustments at work and your rights

Obviously not just for women, but it will be of interest to many of us here. It's not clear to me if this is just England and Wales, or applicable in all of GB and NI.

https://news.sky.com/story/money-live-personal-finance-consumer-interest-rate-mortgages-savings-careers-jobs-tips-sky-news-latest-13040934

(you'll have to scroll down to find the story from 5 October 2026)

Can you sue your boss? Experts say you can

Experts say a new tribunal ruling means you can personally sue your boss at work if your request for reasonable adjustments is ignored.

A tribunal recently ruled that managers who fail to make reasonable adjustments for disabled workers can be held equally liable as their employer....

The employment tribunal initially dismissed the claims against the individuals, finding that a claim for failure to make reasonable adjustments could only be brought against the employer.

But this was later overturned on appeal, with the appeal tribunal arguing that while the duty to make reasonable adjustments rests with the employer, individual employees can be held personally liable for their own actions under sections 109 and 110 of the Equality Act 2010. [my bold]

Although the case does not mean the four individuals have been found to have breached the Equality Act, it means the claims against them can now proceed....

[link to tribunal ruling]: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6aabfc9f2f29b3888481867c/Ms_C_Merriman_v__1__1st_Staff_Ltd_and_Others__2026__EAT_128.pdf

Thank you to everyone. I don’t think it’s being vexatious. I have a list of people who have died in non domestic toilets recently, including in schools, nightclubs, supermarkets, stations, council buildings etc. It was noted in coroner reports etc that in many cases cpr was tried but was unsuccessful because there was a delay as no one knew the person had collapsed. When you’ve read lots of these including how it affects teachers etc, it starts to get frustrating. And when you have parents asking you for help I feel dutybound to find out if I can.

For schools there’s statutory guidance for supporting pupils at school with medical conditions and KCSiE as well as The School Premises (England) 2012 or The Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014.

Maybe some sort of Prevention of Future Deaths? It is incredibly difficult trying to discuss how deaths could have been prevented by a simple gap. This should be about safeguarding all pupils but particularly those vulnerable in toilets.

@Keeptoiletssafe

Who is at fault when a disabled person hasn’t got a reasonable toilet option?

In a school setting, responsibility lies with the school. The governors (or the MAT for an academy that is part of an MAT) have ultimate responsibility for running the school.

DfE can be held responsible for any guidance they produce, but not for what happens in individual schools on the grounds that they are too remote. Looking in the other direction, schools cannot hide behind DfE guidance. The fact that a school has followed DfE guidance does not protect them from legal challenges as guidance cannot overrule the law.

Thank you for pointing out that there is 'fairly solid case law around reasonable vs unreasonable adjustments' where disability is the issue, so adjustments that are too expensive, or too disruptive, or disproportionate to the number of disabled employees can be rejected. I think it's also acceptable to ask the employee to make adjustments, e.g. to move to a different part of a building where access is easier to provide.

I have yet to see the same reasonable/unreasonable/cost/disruption assessment being applied to the demand for providing mixed sex facilities everywhere, despite the small numbers requiring them. Or preferring them, to be accurate.

edited to read better

Thank you. My reason for posting was when parents get a ‘no’ from the headteacher for changing the toilet design to accommodate the child’s disability.

so how does it work in practice then, do you no longer need to put the individual employee down as a respondent? I only ask as I have done tribunal proceedings in the past (settled though).

IANAL! But I assume it means you can now name individual employees as respondents in these cases and not expect to see that thrown out by the tribunal as they routinely were before. So, in this regard, reasonable accommodation cases will now be treated the same as sex/race/etc. discrimination cases.

Schools are not subject to the reasonable adjustment duty to make alterations to physical features, like adding ramps. They must make the buildings accessible for their disabled pupils as part of their overall planning duties.

https://www.gov.uk/rights-disabled-person/education-rights

The planning duties mentioned is the accessibility plan.

The cost of adapting all school buildings was likely deemed prohibitive hence the accessibility plan in the EA allows schools to plan changes over the longer term, but those plan doesn’t place the same requirements on schools as being required to make reasonable adjustments would.

I'm not sure how far a directive on longer term changes gets us. The bathrooms in the supplied image (if they are the ones in question) are clearly recently renovated.

Does it seem reasonable for a bathroom to have been entirely recently rebuilt, and then immediately argue that provision for disabled pupils to use them will have to wait for some later modification?

I agree with you (and have spent quite a bit of time arguing around this with my local council). I would argue new builds are not about reasonable adjustments as they aren’t adjusting anything.

I would expect you would name both.