On the Rollonfriday website they have a story about a non-practising Barrister who made a claim of race discrimination. The claims that the Claimant made were quite ridiculous and the Judge at the EAT gave them fairly short shrift. It is well worth reading the judgment just for it's comedy value!
Employment lawyers often have to deal with frivolous claims such as this one and while they do provide us with some light relief and fee income, employers do suffer in terms of having to pay for legal representation and the loss of management time in having to prepare for and appear at hearing.
There has been talk of how to prevent frivolous and vexatious claims being made and one suggestion from the Department of Business Innovation and Skills is that Claimants should have to pay a fee to the Employment Tribunal when they lodge a claim. It is thought that this would act as a deterrent to vexatious litigants. I am not convinced by this argument and believe that it is more likely to deter genuine claimants of limited means who have a genuine claim. The very nature of vexatious claimants means that they don't care about the cost of lodging a claim, they are just determined to make life as difficult as possible for their former employer.
My suggestion to minimise costs is to give Employment Tribunal Judges more discretion to kick out frivolous and vexatious claims at an early stage. Too often I have been to Pre-Hearing Reviews where the Employment Judge has been reluctant to move towards dismissing a claim on the grounds that a Claimant has no prospects of success as case law has made it difficult for claims to be struck out in these circumstances. I believe that this imbalance should be addressed and if Tribunal Judges are given more discretion to strike out a claim at an early stage then fewer ridiculous claims of the type reported above will proceed to a full hearing.
No comments:
Post a Comment