Miss E Scott v Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust — 2019

At the preliminary hearing on 23 October 2019, the Tribunal dealt with the claimant's application for relief against sanctions arising from the Unless Order. It reinstated only the protected disclosure claims because the claimant had complied with part of paragraph 1 by providing further particulars of disclosures and detriments, but it noted that she had not complied with the medical evidence requirement linked to the disability discrimination claims, which had already been dismissed by letter dated 4 October 2019 and which she did not seek to revive.

The respondent then succeeded on its strike-out application under Rule 37(1)(b). Applying the high threshold described in Blockbuster Entertainment, Bolch and Force One Utilities, the Tribunal found that the claimant's February 2019 email to the Chief Executive and June 2019 sympathy card, both sent in the course of the proceedings, were scandalous, unreasonable and vexatious. It held that the references to murder and terror, together with the wider context of the correspondence, meant a fair hearing was no longer possible and that no lesser sanction than strike-out was proportionate, so the reinstated protected disclosure claims were struck out in their entirety.