RESEARCH / VERSION 1.1 / 16 OCTOBER 2026
Addiction and employment law
What have courts and tribunals actually decided?
Coverage: 12 selected cases with original judgment sources. Includes procedural rulings, merits decisions and appeals; not a complete case-law search.
Findings and their limits
12 selected case families: 3 appellate and 9 first-instance records. The digest distinguishes addiction, separate impairments, prescribed medication and workplace substance policies.
Three useful distinctions recur: disability status does not establish liability; a remittal does not establish a final win; and a medication/testing dispute need not involve addiction. Each record supplies exact paragraph-backed propositions and connected judgments.
The Truman summary now distinguishes the comparator approved by the EAT from the inadequate comparative-disadvantage reasoning. Smith’s disability, liability and remedy decisions and Rowley’s later reconsideration history are linked. Power and Hutchison remain research leads without verified accessible originals, not sources of new holdings here.
Cite and reuse
Civil Liberties Action (2026). Addiction and employment law [Dataset]. Version 1.1, 2026-10-16. https://cla-political-finance.copperchime4.chatgpt.site/databases/releases/2026-10-16-v1.1/cases-research.html
BibTeX RIS Full CSV Full JSON Reproducibility package
For an individual observation, cite its fixed-version record and the original source. Credit original publishers for their figures; CLA supplies the compilation, coding and stated analysis. Reuse terms.
Methods and selection
Unit of analysis
One case family, with each linked preliminary, merits, remedy, appeal and reconsideration judgment identified separately. Multiple stages are not multiple independent claimant experiences.
Inclusion and coverage
12 selected Great Britain employment cases with accessible original judgment sources. Includes addiction, related impairments, prescribed medication and substance-policy misconduct. Northern Ireland is outside the release. Historical research leads without retrievable originals are excluded from legal propositions.
Coding and checks
- Separate Employment Appeal Tribunal authority from first-instance illustrations. Record the issue, procedural stage, actual disposition and precise paragraph supporting each proposition.
- Distinguish allegations, factual findings, legal reasoning and orders. A preliminary disability finding is not success on the discrimination merits; a remittal is not a final claimant victory.
- Appeal status means the linked history actually checked, not certification that no further proceedings exist. Fresh paragraph checks and additional judgment links are recorded separately from the original compilation date.
Selection-history limitation
The first pilots were assembled through purposive discovery and source checking. Their complete original search-engine query/results history was not retained, so the first selection cannot be replayed exactly. This limitation is not repaired by writing a retrospective systematic-search claim. Published records and transformations can be reproduced from the supplied files; prospective expansion protocols below define the next collection work.
Prospective expansion protocol
Search GOV.UK Employment Tribunal and Employment Appeal Tribunal decisions, Find Case Law and accessible original BAILII judgments for addiction, alcohol dependence, substance dependence, prescribed cannabis, disability and substance misuse, with synonyms and cited-case chaining. Record query, platform, date, result scope, included decision IDs and exclusion reasons. Retrieve complete originals and follow linked later judgments before adding a proposition. Historical Power and Hutchison leads remain visible gaps until originals can be checked.
Interpretation limits
Selected litigated cases cannot show prevalence or success rates. This is a research digest, not individual legal advice, a complete citator or independently reviewed legal guidance.
Dates and accountability
Release date is the date of this publication. reviewed_at records a stated evidence check, not proof that every fact remains current. Publication date, event date, reference period, document version and source-check date are separate fields.
Published by Civil Liberties Action. Compilation, source retrieval and drafting used AI assistance. Automated integrity checks and additional source checks are described below; no independent external or specialist review is claimed.
Download the protocol and dictionary
Data dictionary
| Field | Definition |
|---|---|
| id / record_id | Stable record identifier; retained across releases where the unit remains the same. |
| release / version | Publication date and release version, separate from the date of underlying evidence. |
| record_url / citation | Fixed-version record link and suggested citation. |
| category / geography / period | Display group, actual coverage and source reference period; not a harmonised statistical panel. |
| reviewed_at | Date of the recorded source check, subject to its stated scope. |
| details / sources | Labelled observations and original URLs, titles and locators. |
| limitations | Record-specific boundary on interpretation. |
| raw | Underlying typed source/coding fields; null remains missing, not zero. |
| authority_level / addiction_scope | Appellate or first instance; actual relevance to addiction, medication or misconduct. |
| propositions | Supported proposition, original URL, precise locator and kind of determination. |
| connected_decisions | Judgment-stage links within the same dispute, not additional cases. |
| proposition_checked_at / history_check | Targeted check and its limits; not a complete citator certification. |
Fixed-version records
Corrections, funding and interests
Send the record identifier, proposed correction and supporting primary source to policy@civillibertiesaction.org.uk. Corrections are assessed against the same evidence rules for all subjects. Responses, reversals and corrected outcomes receive the same factual prominence as initial decisions. Substantive changes require a dated new release and a change-log entry; the old files remain available.
CLA's existing funding and interests statement applies. Its founder has disclosed Labour Party membership. The same inclusion, identity and correction rules apply regardless of political affiliation. Read the declaration.