Lidl has been ordered to pay €28,000 to a warehouse employee who was told there was no work for him after he suffered a hernia and was restricted to light duties.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) made the award to Lukasz Swiercz for disability discrimination by his employer, Lidl Ireland GmbH, as it had failed to adjust his role when he tried to go back to work.
Swiercz, a stock picker employed to handle groceries at a Lidl warehouse in Newbridge, Co Kildare, told the tribunal he fell ill at work in January 2025 and was referred to hospital – later being diagnosed with a hernia.
He returned in March that year with a note from his GP stating that he was fit for work but “for light duties only, can do a desk job, no heavy lifting”, the tribunal heard.
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He was then sent home by a manager with instructions to “provide a certificate when he was fully fit to attend work”.
The day after that, a logistics manager, Phillip Byrne, phoned Swiercz and said that having reviewed his medical certificate, there was “no available position” for him, Swiercz said.
It was July 17th, 2025, before Swiercz was referred to an occupational health practitioner by Lidl, after a letter from his solicitor to his employer at the start of the month.
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At the end of August that year the complainant received correspondence stating that “light duties” was “too restrictive” as a workplace accommodation in the warehouse setting.
However, the letter said Swiercz could go back to work on a “phased return basis”, the letter stated.
Swiercz said in his evidence he started back on September 15th, 2025. At first, he said, he “lifted only lighter items” before returning to his “usual duties” after a further fortnight, when he started lifting goods such as milk and butter.
Byrne, the logistics manager, gave evidence that the warehouse work was “a very physical job with daily targets” which required “moving, bending and lifting boxes of different rates”.
He said he was concerned he could not guarantee Swiercz’s safety under the restrictions set out in the March 2025 medical letter.
“The position is that we do not facilitate lighter duties,” Mr Byrne told the tribunal.
Adjudication officer Elizabeth Spelman ruled that Lidl “failed to provide reasonable accommodation” to Swiercz, and that its actions amounted to disability discrimination.
She awarded compensation of €28,000, about a year’s salary – taking into account six months’ financial loss and the requirement that an award stand as a deterrent.
The claimant was represented by solicitor Krystian Boino in the matter. Barrister Roland Rowan acted for Lidl, instructed by Fieldfisher Ireland LLP.
The adjudicator noted reference in the respondent’s legal papers to a previous back injury suffered by Swiercz and a settlement agreement dating to August 2021.
“A previous back injury and settlement agreement do not exempt the respondent from its obligations under the Employment Equality Act,” she wrote.
In setting compensation, Spelman took into account the fact that Lidl had failed to engage in “any meaningful way” with Swiercz about sending him to an occupational health practitioner until he got his solicitor involved.
Lidl’s “broad-brush position in refusing reasonable accommodations to warehouse operatives” was also a factor in the award.
Spelman also “note[d] with concern” that Lidl wrote to Swiercz six weeks after he was sent home referring to potential disciplinary action linked to adherence with its absence-management process.
