Judge rules menopause is a disability as woman wins £19,000 payout

A COURT officer who was sacked for misconduct has won her job back – after a tribunal ruled her menopause was a disability. Mandy Davies was also awarded more than £19,000 after the judge decided that she had been dismissed unfairly.

It is understood the case is one of a very few in which menopause has been cited as a disability.

Miss Davies lost her job with the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service (SCTS) last year following 20 years of service and an immaculate record.

She was fired after colleagues drank from her water jug – and she could not recall whether she had poured medication inside.

But she told an employment tribunal she had been unfairly dismissed and discriminated against because of a disability.

According to the judgment on the case, Miss Davies had been suffering from peri-menopause symptoms, which included very heavy bleeding – generally referred to as flooding – along with stress, anxiety, palpitations and loss of memory.

The document also states she had become ‘severely anaemic due to the heavy bleeding, and also felt “fuzzy”, emotional and lacking in concentration at times’.

To ease her severe symptoms and treat a bout of cystitis Miss Davies had been prescribed medicine which she would carry in a pencil case and dilute into a water jug on her desk in court.

But on one occasion she returned to the court after an adjournment and noticed two men drinking from the jug.

She could not recall if she had poured medicine into the water.

The judgment states that Miss Davies alerted the men to the possible incident.

One of them launched ‘into a rant and made comments to the effect of “trying to poison the two old guys in the court”, and asking if he would grow “boobs”’.

Miss Davies was subsequently asked to attend a Health and Safety (H&S) meeting, at which it was disclosed that there had been no medication in the water. If there had been, the liquid would have turned pink and would have had a ‘cranberry taste’.

A report produced by H&S concluded that Miss Davies would have known if there had been medication in the water and that she ‘showed no remorse for her actions and did not appear worried they had taken this medication’.

The H&S report stated that Miss Davies had breached rules over storing her medication and knowingly misled officials over the jug of water, the judgment noted.

The H&S report was later used against Miss Davies during a disciplinary hearing, at which she was dismissed from her job on the grounds of gross misconduct.

But at the employment tribunal, Judge Lucy Wiseman ruled that Miss Davies had been unfairly dismissed.

She found that the H&S investigation had strayed outwith its remit, and that Miss Davies had been genuinely confused about whether or not her medication had been added to the water.

Following the judgment from Judge Wiseman the SCTS was ordered to pay Miss Davies £5,000 compensation for the injury to her feelings caused by the unfair dismissal, along with a further £14,009 for lost pay.

The service was also ordered to reinstate her to her previous role of a court officer.

A spokesman for the SCTS said: ‘The SCTS respects the decision of the Employment Tribunal and is currently considering the judgment.’

‘Severely anaemic and felt emotional’