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Fatness "can constitute a disability" for the purposes of European Union equality at work legislation, Europe's highest court has ruled.  The judgment means British companies will be required to treat obese workers as "disabled", providing them with larger seats, special parking spaces and other facilities.  “Obesity can constitute a ‘disability’ within the meaning of the Employment Equality Directive,” the European Court of Justice ruled. “While no general principle of EU law prohibits, in itself, discrimination on grounds of obesity, that condition falls within the concept of ‘disability’ where, under particular conditions, it hinders the full and effective participation of the person concerned in professional life on an equal basis with other workers.”  The EU court ruling, which is binding on British employers, follows a case brought by Karsten Kaltoft, a Danish childminder, who claimed he was sacked by his local authority employer because he was so overweight. ... Important to the ruling, is the EU court’s judgement that the origin of the disability is irrelevant even if someone's gross obesity is caused by overeating or gluttony.  “The concept of ‘disability’ within the meaning of the directive must be understood as referring to a limitation which results in particular from long-term physical, mental or psychological impairments which may hinder the full and effective participation of the person concerned in professional life on an equal basis with other workers,” said the court  “The directive has the object of implementing equal treatment and aims in particular to enable a person with a disability to have access to or participate in employment. In addition, it would run counter to the aim of the directive if its application was dependent on the origin of the disability.”  “This test could mean that businesses face claims from obese staff for failing to make reasonable adjustments to their role if the job entails tasks where they would be on an unequal footing with other staff – tasks that require full mobility such as stacking shelves in a supermarket for example." "Employers will need to consider whether they make any adjustments for obese staff to protect themselves from discrimination claims, but they also need to consider whether doing so could trigger employee relation issues and related claims from other members of staff who feel that their obese colleague is ‘getting away’ with doing less work or ‘avoiding’ manual tasks – and that they are doing more of this work as a result.” Vanessa Di Cuffa, employment law partner at Shakespeares, welcomed the judgement.  “It is right that the EU has moved forward with enshrining this into law,” she said.  “This is the right decision. Although previous legislation allowed for employees to be protected against other forms of discrimination, it is positive that obesity is now being seriously recognised.”  The EU court declined to define what level of Body Mass Index (BMI), the measure used to calculate the degree of obesity in an individual, would be required to class soemone as disabled, ruling that decisions would be made on a case by case basis.