By Ashley Young
An employment solicitor is suing the Government Legal Department, claiming he was made to attend a team building exercise that might harm his health.
Farrukh Hussain has brought a complaint of direct disability discrimination , arguing that he was compelled to attend the away day at a city farm despite his concerns it would exacerbate his asthma.
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Hussain, who worked for the Government Legal Department (GLD) for around four months last year, also claims he was required to accept all cases he was being offered and told twice to ‘shush’ by his line manager when he raised a grievance.
Hussain also alleges harassment, failure to make reasonable adjustments, victimisation, failure to pay holiday pay and less favourable treatment of an agency worker.
He had worked at the GLD as a solicitor engaged with an umbrella company, Parasol Limited, which itself had a contract with the agency which supplied him, Netforte Limited. The charge rate for this arrangement was £237.98 a day.
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Hussain said he had emailed his manager saying he was looking forward to the farm visit but that contact with animals would worsen his asthma. He alleges the manager showed a ‘blatant disregard’ to his health and well being and stated that as the venue was outside he should be fine.
Hussain also claims he was discriminated against on account of an alleged refusal of his request to work from home one or two days a week.
TERMINATED
The GLD say Hussain’s assignment was terminated in April after it discovered he had breached data protection policies by forwarding work-related emails to his private account. It was stated that despite support and help from senior colleagues, Hussain’s performance did not improve and managers did not feel confident in his ability to manage employment litigation.
Hussain is also said to have told two GLD employees he was ‘going to do [it] for disability discrimination’ and that he decided to bring the claim before even starting work there.
Employment Judge Brown ruled Hussain was supplied to the GLD as an agency worker and his contract was with the umbrella company. The judge said the remaining claims were for discrimination which were disputes of facts between parties.
The GLD asked for the claims to be struck off because they are vexatious with no reasonable prospect of success. However, the central employment tribunal hearing the case said it was not possible to state at this early stage whether the claim had a reasonable prospect of success, so was allowed to continue.
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