We all need a break every once in a while and when we get sick, we may need to take off work. That is what happened to a man named Ian Clifford, but he seems to have taken things to the extreme.
Clifford worked for IBM and in April 2013, he reached a ‘compromise agreement’ with that company. In other words, he was put on the sickness and accident plan offered by the company and would receive 75% of his salary until he retired or was no longer on the plan.
The plan entitled him to about $67,732 per year until he turned 65. All the while, he continued to take this sick leave. This means that he has earned an estimated $1.85 million since it began, even though he had worked since 2008.
In addition, he was paid a settlement for his holiday after he complained in 2013 and agreed that a further grievance would never be raised about the same issues.
Something changed in February 2022 when Clifford came to an employment tribunal. He claimed disability discrimination that was similar to what was in his 2013 grievance. His claim was that he was being treated unfavorably because he hadn’t received a pay raise since joining the plan in 2008 and thought that it was a matter of disability discrimination.
He said that inflation was causing the value of his income to ‘wither’.
The claim was dismissed at an employment tribunal in Redding, Brookshire in March 2023. A judge told Clifford that he was given a ‘very substantial benefit’. The judge also called it a ‘favorable treatment’.
Clifford first started working for the software company in 2000 after it was purchased by IBM. He argued that the plan was designed to ‘give security to employees not able to work – that was not achieved if payments were forever frozen.’
According to employment judge Paul Housego, “The claim is that the absence of increase in salary is disability discrimination because it is less favourable treatment than afforded those not disabled.
“This contention is not sustainable because only the disabled can benefit from the plan. It is not disability discrimination that the Plan is not even more generous.
“Even if the value of the £50,000 a year halved over 30 years, it is still a very substantial benefit.
“However, this is not the issue for, fundamentally, the terms of something given as a benefit to the disabled, and not available to those not disabled, cannot be less favourable treatment related to disability.
“It is more favourable treatment, not less.”
