Wait or document? The choice that decided M&S and Lloyds

Rita Jandu won £53,855 from Marks and Spencer. The tribunal found she had been marked down for "rushed emails" in a redundancy round. That was a direct effect of her dyslexia (Jandu v Marks and Spencer, Employment Tribunal judgment, December 2022).

Carl Borg-Neal won over £470,000 from Lloyds Banking Group. A single question in a training session got him sacked (Borg-Neal v Lloyds Banking Group, UKET 2202667/2022, remedy judgment 2024). Both cases turned on one fact.

The employer already knew about the dyslexia link before the mistake was judged. That single fact decided who won. It is also the decision sitting in front of you right now, the moment a mistake happens.

What the evidence did in both cases

Jandu raised the link between her dyslexia and the redundancy criticism during the scoring process itself. She did not wait until after the decision to explain it. The tribunal criticised M&S for assuming, without checking, that she was lying or mistaken.

That failure to check a written claim is what turned a lawful redundancy into an unlawful one. The record existed. M&S chose to ignore it instead of asking Occupational Health.

Borg-Neal's dyslexia was already on file with the bank. That record came from earlier occupational health evidence, put in place long before the training session. It let the tribunal accept medical proof for why pressure made him "spurt things out."

If your dyslexia isn't on record, and you don't flag the link, your next dispute starts from zero evidence.

Why waiting feels like the safer choice

Raising dyslexia right after a mistake can feel like drawing attention to yourself. It can feel like making an excuse nobody asked for. Plenty of dyslexic employees stay quiet and hope the moment gets forgotten.

Most of the time, it does get forgotten, at least for a while. The problem shows up later. The mistake resurfaces in a performance review, a redundancy score, or a disciplinary file, sometimes months on.

By then the single mistake has become "a pattern" or "a concern." There is no written note linking it to your dyslexia at all. Memory alone will not convince a tribunal of anything.

Jandu and Borg-Neal both had a record already in place. That is what a tribunal weighs. Not what you remember feeling in the moment, but what was written down at the time.

This matters most at review time or during a redundancy round, when old mistakes get re-read as a pattern. A single documented incident from months ago carries far more weight than a fresh explanation offered under pressure. That timing gap is exactly what both tribunals had to weigh.

Staying silent removes the one thing both these cases needed to win: a timestamp connecting the event to the disability.

What writing it down looks like this week

You do not need a solicitor to start a paper trail. A short email to your manager or HR, sent the same day, is enough. Three sentences will do the job.

A short template you can use today

"Following today's meeting, I wanted to note something. The error in [the report / the email / the figures] was linked to my dyslexia, specifically [reading speed / working memory / number transposition]. I'd like to talk about adjustments so this doesn't happen again."

Send it from your work email, not a personal one. Keep a copy somewhere outside your work account too, in case access changes later.

In the UK, ACAS guidance updated in January 2025 recommends written confirmation of every adjustment conversation. Verbal-only claims are hard to prove months later. In the US, the Job Accommodation Network gives the same advice, for the same reason.

If you have never asked for adjustments before, the reasonable adjustments builder can help. It turns your specific problem into a short written note and a plan for the talk. It takes about two minutes, so you are not starting from a blank page.

None of this requires you to over-explain or apologise at length. State the fact, name the difficulty, and ask for a conversation. That is the whole template, every time.

Send the email the same day the mistake happens, not after your manager opens a formal process around it.

Document now versus wait and see

Think of the email as cheap insurance, not an accusation. It costs two minutes to send and rarely gets read as a complaint. Not sending it costs nothing today, but it can cost thousands later, as both tribunal awards show.

Choice	What it gives you later
Document the same day	A dated note your employer cannot argue away, plus proof that triggers the duty to adjust
Wait and hope it blows over	No written note linking the mistake to your dyslexia, just your memory of what you said

Both Jandu and Borg-Neal show which side of that table wins at tribunal. The dated record beats the memory, every time. It also beats a manager's memory of what you said, which rarely matches yours.

Look at that table honestly. Which column describes what you actually have on file right now?

What if your manager brushes it off

Not every manager will respond well to that first email. Some will say it's fine, or that it's not worth a fuss. That reaction doesn't cancel the record you just created.

Once it's in writing, it exists whether or not anyone replies. A dismissive one-line reply, or no reply at all, still sits in the same inbox as your original note. Save both, and move on with your day.

A weak response from your manager doesn't undo the record. It just means the record is doing its job quietly, for now.

If you don't have a formal diagnosis yet

You do not need a diagnosis to send this kind of email. UK and US law both cover employees who have not been formally assessed. The difficulty has to be real and ongoing, not the label.

Write about the specific problem instead of the diagnosis. "I mix up numbers under time pressure" works, even with no assessment behind it. A written note of the pattern still helps if you seek adjustments later.

Not having a diagnosis is not a reason to stay silent. It is a reason to describe the pattern in your own words.

UK and US: the same principle, different routes

In the UK, the Equality Act 2010 duty to adjust depends on knowledge. Your employer has to know, or reasonably be expected to know, about your dyslexia. A same-day email creates that knowledge instantly.

The Access to Work guide covers what funding becomes available once that knowledge is on record. In the US, the ADA's interactive process works the same way. Your employer cannot accommodate a disability it does not know about.

The ADA accommodations guide covers how to trigger that process properly. Neither system rewards silence. Both reward a paper trail.

The legal duty starts the moment your employer has it in writing. It doesn't wait for a court to agree you were right.

What this means for you this week

If a mistake happens today, and you believe it's dyslexia-linked, write it down within 24 hours. Do not wait for a performance review or a redundancy round to raise the connection for the first time.

By then you are explaining the past instead of documenting the present. That is a much weaker position, both legally and practically. It is also a harder conversation to have from memory alone.

Three short sentences sent on the day beat a good reason given six months later. That is the real lesson both tribunals leave behind.

The next mistake that feels dyslexia-linked is the one to document immediately, not the one to explain away later.