Help injured at work. Company has no liability insurance

SarEl

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Well beyond my detailed knowledge but the OP only said that the company had gone into liquidation and did not say if it was voluntary or compulsory. It is possible that it was a voluntary liquidation and that the company was still solvent at the time.

If debts are owed there are circumstances that you can force the company to be restored via court order which I guess could be used in these sorts of circumstances but you're going to want to check what the status was when it was liquidated as there is no point throwing good money after bad.

But
(a) no debt is owed - the OP has never made a claim and therefore it is irrelevant whether the company was still solvent at the time because the OP isn't owed anything, and
(b) the company is insolvent - the OP stated in the first post that the redudancy payments were made by the RPS and they never pay out unless the employer cannot.

InsideInsurance

Ok, accept (b) and therefore my question is purely hypothetical now.... does the liability have to have been proven prior to the reinstatement which presumably isn't possible given the defendant doesn't exist until the reinstatement occurs? I remember from a previous case on another forum where someone was claiming for breach of contract and one of the resident solicitors recommended the reinstatement option but presumably they too would be in the same position of not having a debt against the dissolved company until a trial has determined liability.

SarEl

You are straying out of employment law into territory that I studied many years ago, so the mind is foggy. But reinstatement means that the company is not dissolved, just as reinstatement at work means that you were never sacked! But I would think that reinstatement in order to allow a legal proceeding to happen that has not even begun (and assuming there is even a case - we have not established that there is) would be rather unilkely.It may be more possible if a case has already begun, but rather pointless if there are still no assets to claim against. Because you are still left with an evidential challenge to prove personal liability of directors, which must show an act of intent or deliberation in their neligence on their part to override the limited liability status and move it to personal liability. The grounds upon which directors may become personally liable are very tightly defined - too tightly in my opinion - which enables too much wriggle room. Which is why people get away with setting up one company after another and leaving a trail of debts and penniless employees.