Ms S Evans v Just One Health and Social Care Limited — 2023

Ms Evans worked as a Support Worker for Just One Health & Social Care Ltd from 5 January 2019 until her summary dismissal on 5 July 2022. The case arose from an incident on 29 April 2022 at the Acorns Project involving service user CG and another support worker, AV. The tribunal found that there was a disagreement about food choices, that Ms Evans raised her voice to CG, and that there was no evidence of any ulterior motive for the dismissal.

The tribunal held that the dismissal process was unfair because the decision-maker, Mr Tomlinson, did not conscientiously and thoroughly assess the evidence before signing off Ms Johnson's draft dismissal letter. He relied on undisclosed critical comments from colleagues that were not put to Ms Evans, did not speak to witnesses, did not resolve inconsistencies in the evidence, and did not properly consider the full range of possible outcomes before approving dismissal. The tribunal found that this reliance on undisclosed material and incomplete investigation made the decision unreasonable and unfair.

The appeal hearing before Mr Price was more thorough, but it did not cure the unfairness because he also relied in part on the same undisclosed colleague statements. He accepted that the allegation about taking away CG's choice was less clear, but upheld dismissal because he believed Ms Evans had raised her voice inappropriately to a vulnerable service user. The tribunal accepted that Ms Evans had put herself at risk of disciplinary sanction, and possibly dismissal, because a Support Worker should not shout at a service user, so contribution and Polkey issues were left for a later remedy hearing. The claimant's initial disability discrimination claim was withdrawn and formally dismissed, and no remedy was determined in this liability judgment.