Obesity may be classified as a disability in Europe, according to a new court ruling.
Business owners and other employers in Europe may now be required to provide additional support to obese workers under the new ruling. That decision does not declare even morbid obesity as a condition protected by anti-discrimination laws, however.
The Court of Justice of the European Union (EJC) stated employment laws should not be extended to protect obese workers from discrimination.
A court in Denmark requested that the higher court provide guidance to them in the case of an overweight man dismissed from his job as a childcare worker.
Karsten Kaltoft claims his weight, over 350 pounds, was one of the reasons he was dismissed from his employment, and claimed discrimination. The EJC ruled current law does no protect employees from dismissal based on weight.
If obesity leads to an inability to work, the court ruled, the condition may then be classified as a disability, which could be protected under current European laws.
Had the Luxembourg-based court ruled that obesity itself were a protected condition, the ruling would have required employers to accommodate workers with weight issues so they could perform their jobs at the same level as other employees.
"If you consider the obese disabled, all of a sudden it triggers certain protections for employees. That makes it a whole lot easier for employees in that it is easier to win the case," Jacob Sand, from the law firm Gorrissen Federspiel in Denmark, said.
Kaltoft had asked the court to award 15 months pay to him as payment for his dismissal.
This is because classifying obesity in a manner similar to age, sex, or race would have removed the requirement for a dismissed worker to provide a burden of proof in lawsuits.
Following this ruling, employers will need to consider how they could accommodate obese employees before dismissing them from their positions for weight-related issues.
Kaltof worked for the Municipality of Billund in Denmark for 15 years, before he was laid off of his job in 2010. Officials of the municipality claim the dismissal was due to a decline in the number of children served, not the employee's weight.
Around 20 percent of men and 23 percent of women in Europe are overweight, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The European court must now decide if Kaltoft's obesity constitutes a disability, which could result in compensation. That decision is expected to be handed down sometime before the end of the year.
Similar court cases have been argued in American courts, and some states, such as Michigan, prohibit discrimination in employment based on obesity.
