Well today’s a first!
by Philip
Well I’ve been practising employment law since 1992, acting for both employers and employees, with that amount of experience I’ve seen and heard it all. For example cases I have been involved in include:
- Someone dismissed for cr**ping in a colleague’s lunch box and then leaving that lunch box in his colleague’s desk drawer.
- Someone dismissed for smearing the gent’s toilet walls with the same stuff that hits fans.
- Every shade and degree of allegations of sexual and racial harassment, including video footage of an “excited” male “appendage” being sent by phone to a female employee.
- Cases involving as many variations on the fiddled expense claim/timesheet as is humanly imaginable.
- The hearing that started with a call from the Chairman saying he’d gone to the wrong venue (50 miles away) and would be with us by lunchtime.
- The Chairman who started a case involving smoking illegal substances at work, with the line, “In my day a man could be discharged for passing the port the wrong way at dinner.”
And so on, I could (and probably do) bore you for hours with tales from the employment coal face, gathered over the years. I am pretty much unshockable. If an employee is accused of a serious criminal offence at work, I raise an eyebrow but am no longer surprised. People are fallible and dishonest, that’s part of the human condition.
Well today when opening the post, I was thinking business as usual, as I ran my finger under an envelope bearing the Central London Employment Tribunal post stamp - given its weight and A4 size, it must be a decision I assumed.
Well that assumption certainly made a kicking mule out of me, as lo and behold , what did we have but an ET1 against PJH Law Solicitors. Well that caused not one but two eyebrows to be raised.
Before you jump to any conclusions, this claim isn’t from a disgruntled employee or ex-employee of PJH Law but from a person (I’m tempted to call him serial litigant but couldn’t possibly, but you may wish to draw that inference) who brought a claim against an employer client of ours. That resulted in a costs award being made against the claimant, let’s call him Mr U. Those of you lucky enough to hear Sarah’s session at our update seminar last week, will have heard an outline of that case’s details.
Anyway the claim against PJH Law is because Mr U now believes PJH law victimised him in our (or should I say Sarah’s) robust defence of our client against Mr U’s vexatious claim and the aftermath.
It gets better not only has Mr U brought a claim against PJH Law, he has also brought a claim against the barrister PJH Law engaged at the costs application hearing. When I rang the Barrister to tell him about this claim, he did ask what Mr U was now complaining about, I won’t tell you what I said in full but the edited highlights are that I said in my opinion the claim was a big pile of b*****ks.
Some good has come from this though already, as I now know how it feels like to have a completely unmeritorious claim made, my employer empathy tank has been re-plenished.
Rest assured dear readers we will keep you posted as this one unfolds.
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