Without prejudice meaning

cowsnhope

hiya
I am involved in an employment tribunal. I have received an email from my former employer's solicitor saying that as the ACAS solicitor is out of the office today would I accept x pound as an out of court settlement. I am wondering why she has done this as she could've waited till Monday. Any ideas anyone? The email stated at the beginning that it was 'without prejudice' which from Google-ing seems to mean in secret, i.e. so the judge will not know.
Thank you

whitewing

Possibly in the hope you would accept, and also because you can't talk it through with the ACAS person so you would wonder about it all weekend. It is to keep you in a sense of stress.

cowsnhope

Really? - nice.
The ACAS man isn't giving any input anyway, he told me earlier in the week they'd made an offer which was way lower than I'd accept and I made a counter offer which knocked off quite a lot from my original claim and said it was my only offer. ACAS seem to only be acting as a go-between.
Any idea what the relevance of the 'without prejudice' bit is??

getmore4less

AIUI can't be used in court to improve a future lower offer.

pickpocketlocket

cowsnhope wrote: »

Any idea what the relevance of the 'without prejudice' bit is??

It means you cannot use it as evidence at the tribunal, it is not an admission of fault. Also, if the tribunal was to award you less than they have offered, you cannot say "well they offered me x before the hearing".

sweetme

getmore4less wrote: »

AIUI can't be used in court to improve a future lower offer.

That's exactly what it means. Without prejudice at the end/start of a legal letter/email means basically you can't go back to that letter and it's contents in court.

cowsnhope

Thank you all, it makes more sense now.

BobQ

cowsnhope wrote: »

hiya
I am involved in an employment tribunal. I have received an email from my former employer's solicitor saying that as the ACAS solicitor is out of the office today would I accept x pound as an out of court settlement. I am wondering why she has done this as she could've waited till Monday. Any ideas anyone? The email stated at the beginning that it was 'without prejudice' which from Google-ing seems to mean in secret, i.e. so the judge will not know.
Thank you

Maybe to give you more time to agree to it. Maybe to get you to agree before speaking to your solicitor.

Without prejudice is a standard term that by convention means it cannot be used in the ET as evidence. Its also intended to be an offer that makes no admission of any guilt in the matter being considered.

It may be that the employer thinks they have a greater chance of losing than when the case started. A settlement stops the ET and does not require them to admit their guilt. It could also be that they are not sure how the ET will go but they are making the offer to reduce their financial risks if they lost.

I had some involvement in a case at an ET where the employer's reputation would have been severely damaged if the ET found against them They made a WP offer of over £80K to settle which the complainant declined before losing the case so got nothing!

cowsnhope

Thank you
I don't really know what to do now. Part of me thinks I should hold out as this may mean they've realized they're not going to win and part of me thinks I should just make a counter offer of about half my original claim and accept whatever reduced offer comes back after that. I am no good at bartering......

Any advice?

art_for_arts_sake

BobQ wrote: »

I had some involvement in a case at an ET where the employer's reputation would have been severely damaged if the ET found against them They made a WP offer of over £80K to settle which the complainant declined before losing the case so got nothing!

It isn't always about the money though, if it's a case of unfair dismissal the injured party may want to clear their name which isn't possible by accepting a WP offer. I'm aware of three consecutive claims against an employer. The first was settled before the tribunal by the employee, who had been dismissed, accepting a cash payment from their employer, safe in the knowledge they already had a new job to go. The following two cases of constructive dismissal were fought viciously all the way by the employer but both employees were successful in their claims, so don't feel like you have to throw in the towel just yet.

cowsnhope

Thank you again. I'm just finding the solicitor's maneuvers in this difficult to deal with; they seem to be trying everything to get me to either give up or settle out of court and I don't know if this is just to save my former employer legal expenses or because they know I have a good case - which actually I think I do but that doesn't mean I'll win. Think I need to go to bed and to try to speak to ACAS in the morning.