Case 3306829/2018 · Employment Tribunal
Claimant v The Order of St John Care Trust — 2018
- Case reference
- 3306829/2018
- Decision date
- 6 November 2018
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Gumbiti-Zimuto Appearances
- Venue
- Reading
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Claimant
Respondent
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningMs Stephanie Whitlock was accepted as a disabled person within the meaning of the Equality Act 2010. She brought disability discrimination claims against The Order of St John Care Trust for failure to make reasonable adjustments and victimisation. The respondent's response had already been struck out for non-compliance, and it did not attend the remedy hearing, so the tribunal determined remedy on the claimant's evidence and submissions.
On the reasonable-adjustments claim, the tribunal found that the claimant's request to work part-time, raised from March 2017 and expressly in May 2017, was medically supported but was more or less ignored and then refused for a lengthy period. The adjustment was only implemented much later, and in the meantime the claimant was effectively prevented from working between November 2017 and February 2018 and was required to take accrued holiday. The tribunal assessed injury to feelings for this aspect at £18,000.
On victimisation, the tribunal treated as protected acts the claimant's requests for reduced hours, the occupational health recommendations, her repeated follow-up questions, her formal grievance of 21 November 2017, and the presentation of her tribunal claim. The detriments relied on included her suspension, the proposal of ill-health termination, the handling of the grievance, and the requirement to take holiday. The tribunal assessed a separate £5,000 for victimisation-related injury to feelings and a further £4,000 for pain, suffering and loss of amenity.
The tribunal also awarded £2,000 for aggravated damages and applied a 25% uplift under section 207A of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 because the grievance had not been dealt with in accordance with the ACAS Code of Practice. Interest was awarded under the Employment Tribunals (Interest on Awards in Discrimination Cases) Regulations 1996 at 8% from 1 August 2017 to 12 August 2019, producing £5,481.37. Costs were awarded at £14,605.97 for solicitors' costs, £2,280 for counsel's disbursement and £68.40 for travel, making the final sum £58,685.74.
Claims and outcomes
2 findings recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Disability discrimination | Failure to make reasonable adjustments by not allowing part-time work from March 2017 to June 2018 and not allowing more than one break per day. The tribunal assessed injury to feelings for this head at £18,000 at paragraph 17; the final order later grouped the overall injury-to-feelings figure at £25,000. | Upheld | Disability | £18,000 |
| Victimisation | The protected acts included requests for reduced hours, occupational health recommendations, weekly follow-up chasers, the grievance dated 21 November 2017, and the tribunal claim. The tribunal assessed a separate £5,000 for victimisation-related injury to feelings at paragraph 21; the final order later grouped the overall injury-to-feelings figure at £25,000. | Upheld | Disability | £5,000 |
Remedy
Monetary award- Total award
- £58,686
- across all upheld claims
- Compensatory award
- £4,000
- compensatory remedy recorded
Legal tests applied
6 references- Presidential Guidance for injury to feelings
- Vento brackets
- Judicial College Guidelines
- section 207A Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992
- ACAS Code of Practice
- Employment Tribunals (Interest on Awards in Discrimination Cases) Regulations 1996
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How we got this data
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.
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