O'Hanlon v Revenue and Customs Commissioners [2007] EWCA Civ 283 is a UK labour law case concerning disability discrimination.
Mrs O'Hanlon argued these rules amounted to discrimination under the DDA 1995 s 3A(1) because the Revenue were failing to pay her fully for illness connected with her disability.
The tribunal held that she was not less favourably treated than others and in any case disparate treatment would have been justified since the cost of changing sick pay policy would have been excessive.
Furthermore, although Ms O'Hanlon was at a disadvantage because of the sick pay rules, the employers had taken reasonable steps by reducing her hours and transferring her to an easier location (from Welwyn Garden City to Hertford) to commute from after her return.
The consequent question, as it has emerged in this court, is whether the employer had made "such adjustments as it [was] reasonable, in all the circumstances of the case, for him to have to make in order to prevent the provision … having that effect".
The guide dog example is illuminating less because it was used by a minister in debate than because if the answer were what Mr Jeans QC contends it is people would justifiably wonder what the point of the Disability Discrimination Act was.
We are bound in this regard to follow the decision of this court in Post Office v Jones [2001] ICR 805, and I respectfully agree with Hooper LJ's application of it.
But in case it one day comes up for reconsideration I reiterate the reservations about the decision which, with the concurrence of the other members of the court, I expressed in Collins v Royal National Theatre Board [2004] 2 All ER 851, §§14-16, 22-26.
The whole point of a comprehensive pay scale and scheme is that it applies to everyone, so that individual departures are likely to create justified resentment and require the exercise of discretion in both the legal and non-legal sense of the word.
But any unplanned discriminatory impact may well be justified on the ground that such exceptions as can fairly be made in favour of disabled employees are already programmed into the scheme.
Both tribunals below were understandably concerned at the impact on staff relations of extending full pay indefinitely to those whose sick absence was caused by disability, which was the principal way the case was put to them.