With the scope of protection under anti-discrimination law being extended further and further by appellate court judgments, in Hainsworth v Ministry of Defence the EAT addressed the question of whether employers have a duty to make reasonable adjustments for an employee associated with a disabled person.

Hainsworth is not disabled, but her daughter has Down's Syndrome. Hainsworth argued that by not changing her place of work to assist her as a carer to help with her daughter’s special education requirements, the MoD had breached the duty to make reasonable adjustments. While it is clear that associative discrimination can apply to direct discrimination claims, as protection applies to less favourable treatment “because of” a protected characteristic, which includes a disabled person associated with the employee, the issue for the EAT was whether or not a claim for associative disability discrimination could also include a failure to make reasonable adjustments.

The EAT held that, although the duty on employers to make reasonable adjustments is wide-ranging, the specific wording of the Equality Act 2010 excludes claims of this nature where the employee or job applicant is not disabled. Furthermore, while the concept of “reasonable accommodation” in Article 5 of the Equal Treatment Framework Directive allows for disabled people to participate in employment or to undergo training, the ECJ in Coleman v Attridge Law and another, had ruled that Article 5 only applies to disabled employees themselves. Here, the accommodation sought related to Hainsworth’s daughter and clearly the daughter (who was disabled) was not a MoD employee and Hainsworth herself was not disabled.