---
title: Why Managers Can Now Be Personally Liable for Reasonable Adjustment Failures
description: An EAT ruling in Merriman v 1st Staff Ltd confirms managers can be personally liable for reasonable adjustment failures. What UK employers should do now.
image: https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1573879409095-e47e5759ed0f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMDE3MjIwfDB8MXxzZWFyY2h8Mnx8d29ya3BsYWNlJTIwYWNjZXNzaWJpbGl0eSUyMHN1cHBvcnR8ZW58MHwwfHx8MTc5MjU2NzQ4OHwy&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=80&w=1080
---

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legislative changes Inclusive Workplaces

# Why Managers Can Now Be Personally Liable for Reasonable Adjustment Failures

![Jess Sandham](https://app.hubspot.com/settings/avatar/f3e718f0208c41d2455e73d3b4d42e4c)

 Jess Sandham

October 21, 2026

![Two colleagues in conversation at a desk](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1551836022-d5d88e9218df?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMDE3MjIwfDB8MXxzZWFyY2h8M3x8bWFuYWdlciUyMGVtcGxveWVlJTIwY29udmVyc2F0aW9uJTIwb2ZmaWNlfGVufDB8MHx8fDE3OTI1Njc0ODh8Mg&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=80&w=1080)

*Photo by [Amy Hirschi](https://unsplash.com/@amyhirschi?utm_source=human_by_practice&utm_medium=referral) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=human_by_practice&utm_medium=referral)*

An Employment Appeal Tribunal ruling handed down this month overturns an assumption many employers have relied on for years: that only the organisation, not the individual manager, can be held liable for failing to make a reasonable adjustment. In Merriman v 1st Staff Ltd and others \[2026\] EAT 128, the EAT confirmed that individual managers, colleagues and agents can be named personally in a reasonable adjustments claim, alongside the employer. For anyone running equity audits or manager training on disability inclusion, this is the kind of ruling that changes what good practice actually needs to look like.

## What happened in Merriman

Ms Merriman worked as a tutor, engaged through the staffing agency 1st Staff Ltd. She had a disability that affected her ability to attend tutoring sessions in person, and asked for several adjustments, including moving her sessions online. The adjustments were not made. She brought claims for failure to make reasonable adjustments against the agency and against four individuals who had been involved in handling her case.

An Employment Tribunal struck out the claims against the four individuals, ruling that a reasonable adjustments claim can only be brought against an employer. Ms Merriman appealed. The EAT disagreed with the Tribunal and reinstated the claims against all four. It held that someone acting for an employer can be personally liable alongside it where their own acts or omissions contributed to the failure to make an adjustment.

![Colleagues working together in an open office](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1573879409095-e47e5759ed0f?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMDE3MjIwfDB8MXxzZWFyY2h8Mnx8d29ya3BsYWNlJTIwYWNjZXNzaWJpbGl0eSUyMHN1cHBvcnR8ZW58MHwwfHx8MTc5MjU2NzQ4OHwy&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=80&w=1080)

*Photo by [AllGo - An App For Plus Size People](https://unsplash.com/@canweallgo?utm_source=human_by_practice&utm_medium=referral) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=human_by_practice&utm_medium=referral)*

## Why this reaches further than one tutoring contract

The legal reasoning is narrow, but the practical reach is wide. The duty to make reasonable adjustments sits with the employer, not the individual. An employer can only act through the people who work for it: a line manager who delays a request, an HR adviser who turns one down without proper consideration, a colleague who overrides what was already agreed. The EAT's reasoning is that where any of those individuals personally contributes to the failure, in the course of their work, they can be named and held liable alongside the organisation that employs them.

That is a different risk position than most line managers assume they are working under. Tribunal claimants already name multiple respondents more often than they used to. Merriman gives them a clearer route to add named individuals to a disability claim specifically, a route that used to exist mainly for harassment or victimisation claims.

## What it means for HBP's clients

HBP's equity audit work already treats documented process as the evidence that protects an employer at tribunal: who asked for what, who decided, and why. Merriman adds a second audience for that documentation. A manager who can point to a recorded, reasoned decision, taken after a real conversation with the employee, is in a materially stronger personal position than one who cannot. A manager who assumed an adjustment wasn't needed, or left a request unanswered for months, is now exposed in their own right, separately from their employer's liability.

![Two colleagues reviewing and signing documents](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1562564055-71e051d33c19?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wxMDE3MjIwfDB8MXxzZWFyY2h8Mnx8SFIlMjBtZWV0aW5nJTIwbm90ZXMlMjBkb2N1bWVudGF0aW9ufGVufDB8MHx8fDE3OTI1Njc0ODl8Mg&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=80&w=1080)

*Photo by [Gabrielle Henderson](https://unsplash.com/@gabriellefaithhenderson?utm_source=human_by_practice&utm_medium=referral) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=human_by_practice&utm_medium=referral)*

## Five things to put in place before the next request lands

Training on the reasonable adjustments duty needs to tell managers plainly that they can be named personally in a claim, alongside their employer. Every adjustment request should go to HR or an occupational health adviser promptly, instead of being handled informally by whoever happens to receive it. Decisions should be recorded in writing, including the adjustments considered and the reason each one was accepted or declined, alongside the final outcome. Managers should consult the employee directly and take their view seriously before deciding what will or won't work, instead of guessing on their behalf. Policies on health, wellbeing and adjustments need to be current and easy to find, not buried in a handbook nobody opens, and equality training for managers should run on a regular cycle, not sit as a one-off induction topic.

None of this is a new duty. The duty to make reasonable adjustments has belonged to employers since the Equality Act 2010. What Merriman changes is who else can be held accountable when it goes wrong, and that is reason enough to check the adjustment process now, before the next request lands.

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