It is well understood that refusing to hire somebody because they are disabled will be discriminatory. But what happens if you refuse to hire someone because you think they might be disabled? Or what happens if you refuse to hire someone thinking they might become disabled in the future? These were the issues that the Employment Appeal Tribunal had to tackle in The Chief Constable of Norfolk v Mrs L Coffey.
Mrs Coffey was a police officer who applied for a role in the Norfolk Constabulary. She was successful in her application and was offered the role, subject to her passing the medical tests. As part of those tests, she undertook a hearing test which confirmed (as had been previously known, whilst she had served as a police officer in her previous unit) that she suffered from significant hearing loss, putting her just outside the national standards for police officers.
The Norfolk force did not undertake any practical tests, to identify what impact (if any) that hearing loss had on her ability to perform her duties. Instead, it rejected Ms Coffey’s application on the basis that she did not meet the national standards, even though she was already doing effectively the same job for another force.
Part of the reasoning given by the force was that her hearing could deteriorate to the point where she would have to be taken off the active roster and assigned administrative duties. Norfolk argued that it had to operate under very tight cost and resourcing pressure, and could not justify hiring an officer who might have to move to restricted duties.