Ms M M Wojcik v Bearhill Care Ltd — 2026

This preliminary judgment concerned time limits and jurisdiction. The Tribunal held that Ms M M Wojcik’s complaints against Bearhill Care Ltd of unfair dismissal and discrimination arising from disability could proceed. It dismissed her complaints of failure to make reasonable adjustments and harassment related to disability for lack of jurisdiction. It did not decide the merits of the complaints.

The claimant had worked as a Care Assistant at Bearehill Care Home since June 2013 and had been absent through ill health since 30 October 2024. She was invited to a capability hearing on 17 June 2025 and sought an agreed exit instead. The Tribunal rejected the respondent’s assertion that her email of 20 June 2025 was a resignation. Her intention to leave was conditional on mutually agreed terms, and she gave no termination date.

The respondent’s letter of 1 July 2025 purported to confirm a resignation and said that 12 weeks’ pay and accrued annual leave would be paid on 22 July. It did not plainly and unambiguously state when employment had ended or would end. The claimant’s reply on 2 July did not establish that she understood her employment had terminated. The Tribunal fixed the effective date of termination at 22 July 2025, when receipt of her P45 first made termination unequivocally clear, despite the P45 recording a leaving date of 20 June.

The primary unfair dismissal time limit therefore expired on 21 October 2025, subject to the early conciliation extension. The claimant contacted Acas on 20 October, early conciliation ended on 27 November, and she presented her claim on 2 December 2025. Her unfair dismissal complaint was in time. She also established a prima facie case that the capability process initiated on 17 June and the termination were linked as a continuing act for her discrimination arising from disability complaints, which were consequently in time.

The Tribunal found no reasonably arguable basis for linking the alleged failure to make reasonable adjustments and harassment to that continuing act. Those complaints concerned different factual circumstances, legal arguments, people and periods, namely December 2023 and June 2024. Celia Findlay, the Home Manager at the time and a person named in the harassment complaints, had since left the respondent’s employment.

The Tribunal declined to extend time for those earlier complaints. No satisfactory explanation for the delay was given, and there was no suggestion that the claimant’s health prevented her from bringing proceedings in 2024. She had trade union support from June 2024 and took legal advice in December 2024. The Tribunal found that delay would adversely affect the evidence about events in 2023 and 2024 and that the balance of prejudice weighed more heavily on the respondent. It therefore found no just and equitable basis for an extension. No monetary award was recorded in this judgment.