What with God, theatre and lesbians, the recent EAT decision in Omooba – v – Michael Garrett Associates and Another might truly be said to be the case that has it all. Sadly the legal points underneath the facts are rather more prosaic, but this ruling is nonetheless worth noting for their possible practical application … Continue Reading
Two recent cases on how Employment Tribunals should handle the inappropriate conduct of proceedings by claimants have shed some useful light on their more punitive powers. Both decisions made clear that the ET is far more interested in getting to a fair trial of the issue despite such conduct than in thumping claimants because of … Continue Reading
Human Resources managers try not to have too many hate-figures in their internal client base (not too great for the old professional image, and all that) but you won’t find too many in the HR world who have any time for the serial complainer. Here are some thoughts on that front in response as a … Continue Reading
Don’t you just love a good understatement? How about this little beauty on the merits of a rejected flexible working complaint: “The difficulty for the claimant is that she never proved that this arrangement could work by producing the required amount of work in the required time. This was both in terms of quality and … Continue Reading
It’s all about the numbers in Brooks -v- Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, a new case on when an Employment Tribunal can order costs against an unsuccessful participant – 18 alleged protected disclosures, 40 detriments, a 27-day hearing, a witness statement of 214 pages and over a thousand paragraphs and a hearing bundle of well … Continue Reading
High up on the list of candidates for 2014’s Most Nakedly Transparent Political Gesture Awards was the introduction of a new Section 12A into the Employment Tribunals Act 1996. This was a measure designed to bring bad employers to heel in the Employment Tribunal by the imposition of financial penalties of between £100-£5,000 where the … Continue Reading
The Fair Work jurisdiction in Australia is generally considered a ‘no costs’ jurisdiction, meaning that even if a party is successful in an action, it is usually unable to obtain a costs order against the loser. However in 2012 the Fair Work Amendment Act 2012 (Cth) widened the exceptions to the ‘no costs’ rule by … Continue Reading
A number of cases this year have highlighted that even though the Australian Fair Work Act 2009 regime is generally a “no costs” jurisdiction (i.e. a win does not ordinarily result in an award of costs in the successful party’s favour), the unreasonable conduct of claims can come at a high price for applicants. Costs … Continue Reading
Have you ever looked at the other side’s Schedule of Loss in a Tribunal case and wondered if he inhabits the same legal system you do? Employment Tribunals routinely require such Schedules to try to bring some order and boundaries to both sides’ financial thinking, but this does not always work. Sometimes the compensation at … Continue Reading
“Without more, to conduct a case by not telling the truth is to conduct a case unreasonably, it is as simple as that”. A difficult proposition to challenge, you might think. How much more fundamental to the reasonable conduct of judicial proceedings can you get than telling the truth? However, it is not so simple … Continue Reading
“Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer” said boxing great Muhammad Ali, but the Court of Appeal has this month delivered a robust right hook to those trying the same tactic in High Court litigation. It has been the case since Halsey in 2004 that the courts can penalise in costs … Continue Reading
In the latest episode of this thrilling claim the EAT has upheld a rather hefty costs order against Ms Vaughan. For those of you who may have missed the first couple of episodes, let’s go back to the beginning. Ms Vaughan appealed against the Employment Tribunal’s ruling that 39 hours’ worth of covert recordings of … Continue Reading
Earlier this month, the New South Wales Supreme Court in Australia ordered costs against an employer which funded an employee’s defence of restraint proceedings instigated by his former employer. HRX Pty Ltd v Scott is the latest in a series of legal spats involving human resourcing companies Talent2 and HRX. In this case, HRX employed … Continue Reading
News just in from the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) that the Government intends to increase the minimum length of service for ordinary unfair dismissal claims back up to two years in April next year. This is with a view to “a saving to British industry of around £6million”, and is intended to … Continue Reading