Can I be sacked for something caused by my disability?

Possibly — but often unlawfully. Sacking you for something arising from your disability, like disability-related absence, breaches the Equality Act 2010 unless your employer proves it was proportionate and justified. A disability-related dismissal is not automatically unlawful, and it is not automatically safe either. The deciding question is whether the employer can clear a specific legal test, and most of the time, where they have not first looked at adjustments, they cannot.

The rule: discrimination arising from disability

Where someone is dismissed for something that arises from a disability — sickness absence caused by the condition, or conduct or performance the condition drives — that is discrimination arising from disability under section 15 of the Equality Act 2010. The link between the dismissal and the disability is what the employee has to show. Once they show it, the burden shifts: the employer must prove the dismissal was a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. If they cannot, the dismissal is unlawful. This is disability discrimination even where the employer never intended to treat the person badly.

The two gateways that usually defeat the employer

First, the justification has to be genuinely proportionate. Cutting costs or wanting reliable attendance can be a legitimate aim, but the employer must show dismissal was a fair and necessary way to reach it, not just convenient. Second, and this is the part most decisions get wrong: the justification almost always collapses if reasonable adjustments were not considered first. If altered hours, a phased return, redeployment or extra recovery time would have removed the problem, dismissing instead is rarely proportionate (section 20).

The knowledge condition and the diagnosis point

The protection does not bite if the employer did not know, and could not reasonably have been expected to know, about the disability. So an employer who had no reason to suspect a condition may be outside section 15. But "reasonably expected to know" is a real test: patterns of absence, an occupational-health report or an employee's own account can all fix the employer with knowledge. And you do not need a formal diagnosis to be protected. Disability in law means a physical or mental impairment with a substantial and long-term adverse effect on normal day-to-day activities (section 6); the diagnosis helps prove it but is not the legal test.

For the employer: your compliance checklist

• Identify whether the reason for dismissal is something arising from the disability, not the disability itself.
• Consider and record reasonable adjustments before moving to dismissal.
• Evidence why dismissal is proportionate, and why a less severe step would not work.
• Check the knowledge condition: what did you know, and what should you reasonably have known?

Being protected is not the same as being un-dismissable. An employer who has weighed adjustments, sought occupational-health input and can show dismissal was a last resort may still act lawfully. The test is the process and the proportionality, not the label.

This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.