ET1 - employement tribunal - tape conversation- help!

turbulent

I now have a response from the employeer, via ACAS, and was asked for a 'statement of loss'.
This I have sent to ACAS.
The employers solicitors replied via ACAS very quick, pulling it to bits and stating that there are no 'wrong' procedures and that the ACAS guide lines were followed.
They sent there own 'statement of loss' - a much smaller figure.
How ever they did make an offer of £2000 out of court settlement.

Help; any one know how i should respond to this; do i submit an ammended statement of loss,(as on reading theres and then mine again, it had a couple of small errors) or do I submit a letter stating why I believe that I am owed a certain amount?
If I submitted a letter, some of the justification I would use would be my evidence ?
But should I keep that for going to court?
How much should I reveal if any?

Any help / advise please

SarEl

You can amend a statement of loss if you have made an error in it. But you do not have to agree with their statement - if you win, then the arguments over what is or isn't loss will be part of the remedies hearing.

zzzLazyDaisy

I agree, at this stage the statement of loss is only really to encourage the parties to consider settlement. It only becomes an issue in the tribunal proceedings if/when you have won your case. At that point remedies (compensation) is considered, often at a separate hearing, though not always. That is the point when the statement of loss is considered by the tribunal, and not before.

As others have said, the offer of £2000 is an unknown quantity to us. If you were on minimum wage, it would be a different matter than if you were a Senior manager earning £2K a month.

It is unlikely that this is their first and last offer, so you might be able to push them up a bit.

When considering whether to accept an offer of settlement, do bear in mind that there is never any guarantee of success in litigation, as you never know what might crawl out of the woodwork on the day, or which witnesses the tribunal will believe. It is also a very stressful and time consuming process that can take over your life for months. So sometimes it is better to be pragmatic, get the best you can, draw a line under it and get on with your life. Only you can weigh up the pros and cons, but try not to get hung up on the principles of the thing - principles can be expensive!

Good luck!

turbulent

Thank you for your advise, all very welcome.

SarEl; thanks again, glad to know i can revise the "statement of Loss" as I made 2 mistakes on it, company car amount and I did not know i had to deduct the amount of money 'in lieu' I received.
My origial claim was @"23k a revised one will be @£19k.
So I was feeling a bit silly!, and concerned that they may think I was trying to 'pull as fast one!'.

LazzyDasiy; yes your points about being progmatic etc, and the effect a tribunial would have on life etc. are very true.
I can understand why a lot a ligitimate cases are dropped.
I have been told that my previous employer counts on this happening before a tribunial.

My old employer, employees @ 10,000 people in the UK and has its own special legal department and HR department.
I have about exhausted my legal fighting fund for the time being; my solicitor is still giving me the odd 'free' pointer and has warned me to be careful as she thinks they are trying to play a 'tactical game'

I will respond to there revised "statement of loss" with my own revised one. I have also 'bullet noted' there statement with my points.
I am adding a heading letter to the ACAS contact, to clear up some points that are on the statement.
i.e. I have claimed 3 days holiday owed; they deny this.
I am sure this is an administration error on there part,
so I have written the dates and explanation etc, to try to help them.

But I am very unsure how much I should put my case across; should I save all this for a tribunial or would it be better to put it in writing to them, which my speed up an early settlement??

Please keep your advise comming,
Very greatful.

Jarndyce

Don't make the mistake of holding issues back for the hearing, the Tribunal will take a very dim view of this. The process is designed to get everything out in the open, all documents and witness statements shared, before the hearing. The Tribunal service and ACAS also have statutory responsibilities to save public money and encourage early settlements if possible.

You may have a potentially winnable case but that doesn't mean you should not consider a reasonable settlement offer (not that I'm suggesting £2K is such an offer). In my experience, claimants almost always (and understandably) over-estimate their losses and produce unrealistic schedules of loss - usually by projecting future losses too far forward.

You say you have been there 5 years so your basic award isn't going to be more than £2000. Also - depending on what the Tribunal think about your evidence in terms of missing targets, they may take the view that you have contributed in some way to your own dismissal and reduce your compensation accordingly.

Also - have you sought to mitigate your loss? (sorry if I've missed this but couldn't see it anywhere in the thread). Remember, if you win, the Tribunal will be looking for evidence that you have been applying for jobs seriously. Obviously if you do find a job then your future losses are drastically reduced.

And LazyDaisy is absolutely right - many a claimant's 'day in court' has shuddered to a mammoth anti-climax as their months of hard work result in a technical victory but a desultory compensation award.

So all these factors and more will have an impact on your own view of your losses. So you need to take them all into account - especially if and when the offer to settle starts creeping upwards to any significant extent.

turbulent

I am now preparing the 'bundle' ,
I intend to; put every thing in chronological order, number all pages.
In 3 divided sections; 1.introduction; copy ET1 +responce etc /2. letters / 3.supporting documentation
I will also include the tape of the McDonalds's conversation.

If this is wrong any where or any one has any other advice, please let me know.
Thanks

no-oneknowsme

Have you been told to prepare a bundle? I ask this because it would normally be the respondent who prepares the bundles - you normally find that there needs to be 6 identical bundles made , one for each of the tribunal panel , one for you , one for the respondent and one for the witness table.

Before the bundles are made yourself and the respondent will usually "work together" to agree the content of the joint bundle.

Before you go to the trouble of producing the bundles I just wanted to mention this incase you are giving yourself un-neccessary work.

zzzLazyDaisy

I agree with the above comments.

At this stage the most you should be doing is to ask the respondent's solicitors for a copy of the draft index to the joint bundle for your approval (you may, if you wish, send them a copy of your proposed index, and ask them to either agree it, or to let you have their amended version for your approval).

Preparing the actual bundles is costly owing to the amount of photocopying so that is definitely best left to the respondent!

EDIT - I haven't read the whole thread, so apologies if this has already been pointed out, but if you wish to include the tape, you should prepare a full transcript and send it to the respondent's solicitors with a copy of the tape, so they can check the transcript and agree its accuracy. Even then, depending on how the tape was made, they may raise objections with the tribunal. Whatever you do, please do not ask the tribunal to listen to the whole tape without a transcript, that is just asking for them to refuse to admit the tape!

no-oneknowsme

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

Whatever you do, please do not ask the tribunal to listen to the whole tape without a transcript, that is just asking for them to refuse to admit the tape!

Very good point made LazyDaisy.

turbulent

Hi,
Sorry when, I said "preparing the bundle" , I should have said the other party are preparing it; I have been getting all my documents together for them.
I have now done this a dropped them off.
Thanks for all your advise every one.

I have noted the points you have made on the tape.
I have bullet pointed certain quotes; with the tape time,
and I have tried to not include more than the main points.
About 10 points in the tapes.
Do you think this is ok?