Claimant v Revive Dental Care Ltd — 2017

This was a remedy hearing following the tribunal's reserved merits decision. The tribunal recorded that the respondent was liable for one discriminatory act, namely the failure to make reasonable adjustments and the failure to deal with the claimant's grievance more quickly up to the TUPE transfer on 1 April 2015. The claimant sought loss of earnings, injury to feelings, injury to health, aggravated damages and interest.

The tribunal accepted that delay in the informal and formal grievance process from October 2014 to June 2015 increased the claimant's low mood, anxiety, poor sleep, fearfulness, tearfulness and poor appetite, and that this prompted a self-referral to the Mental Health team in March 2015. It found, however, that there was no satisfactory evidence that those effects continued after the claimant learned the grievance outcome, or that the discriminatory act caused her February 2016 mental breakdown, her inability to work for a lengthy period, her decision not to return as a dental nurse, or any loss of earnings from work elsewhere.

Applying the Vento guidance as revised in Da'Bell, the tribunal placed the injury to feelings in the middle band and awarded £11,000. It also awarded £6,000 aggravated damages because the respondent's conduct of the remedy proceedings, including its unexplained failure to comply with orders for medical evidence and the resulting delay to the hearing, increased the claimant's anxiety; the tribunal rejected the submission that the matter should instead be dealt with by costs or a preparation time order. Interest was awarded on the injury to feelings sum at 8% from 22 October 2014 to the hearing date, producing £2,747.40, and no separate award was made for personal injury or loss of earnings.