employment tribunal phr for deposit hearing help

Skullers

I have a deposits hearing coming up on 26/1/16 which states no oral evidence will be heard. Could someone please give me any info regarding what I need to do to prepare and what will actually happen at the hearing? Do I just explain to the judge why I think I have a case to be answered?

tomtontom

Do you mean a disposals hearing?

Skullers

I haven't the paperwork with me at present but it's to decide if I will have to pay a deposit to continue with my case. I am unrepresented and any help would be appreciated!

makeyourdaddyproud

What has this got to do with employment?

Undervalued

makeyourdaddyproud wrote: »

What has this got to do with employment?

I would imagine it is at an employment tribunal!!!

It is, or was, a common tactic of lawyers trying to intimidate an unrepresented ex employee.

If they can persuade the judge that the case is weak the judge can, although unusual, require them to pay a deposit in order to continue.

Obviously if they go on to win it would be refunded. Even if they lose it is fairly rare for costs to be awarded. Basically the case would need to be so weak it never stood a chance and ex employee would have probably ignored some fairly clear hints from the judge that they were fighting a losing battle.

makeyourdaddyproud

Undervalued wrote: »

I would imagine it is at an employment tribunal!!!

It is, or was, a common tactic of lawyers trying to intimidate an unrepresented ex employee.

If they can persuade the judge that the case is weak the judge can, although unusual, require them to pay a deposit in order to continue.

Obviously if they go on to win it would be refunded. Even if they lose it is fairly rare for costs to be awarded. Basically the case would need to be so weak it never stood a chance and ex employee would have probably ignored some fairly clear hints from the judge that they were fighting a losing battle.

So, as an example, the OP got fired after accruing costs such as overpayments, the employer chased them, they ignored correspondence (probably because they were too skint to repay) thus forcing a court case to recover the costs?

Crazy_Jamie

Undervalued wrote: »

I would imagine it is at an employment tribunal!!!

It is, or was, a common tactic of lawyers trying to intimidate an unrepresented ex employee.

If they can persuade the judge that the case is weak the judge can, although unusual, require them to pay a deposit in order to continue.

Obviously if they go on to win it would be refunded. Even if they lose it is fairly rare for costs to be awarded. Basically the case would need to be so weak it never stood a chance and ex employee would have probably ignored some fairly clear hints from the judge that they were fighting a losing battle.

You're largely correct except for the part that I have underlined. Generally speaking it is rare for costs orders to be made in the Employment Tribunal, but the situation is different when it comes to Deposit Orders.

Rule 39 of the Employment Tribunal Procedure Rules deals with Deposit Orders (click here). Essentially the Tribunal will order you to make a deposit if it is decided that you have 'little reasonable prospects of success' in relation either to your claim as a whole, or in relation to any individual allegation. A deposit can be up to £1,000, though the Tribunal must take into account your ability to pay that money if they deem that a Deposit Order is appropriate.

The part that you do need to pay attention to is Rule 39(5). Essentially the effect of it is that if you are ordered to pay a deposit and the element of your claim to which that deposit relates fails, generally speaking you will be held to have acted unreasonably and the deposit will be paid to the other side. This means in practice that you must give serious consideration to the objective prospects of success of the part of the claim that the deposit order relates to. If you push on with it regardless you may well find yourself out of pocket.

The hearing is conducted on paper, which means that there is no oral evidence, but the Judge will have sight of the documentation that he or she has been provided with. Depending on the stage of the proceedings that documentation may simply be the pleadings (ET1 and ET3), though usually there are other documents available too. Both parties are able to make arguments in the hearing, and obviously the other side will be trying to convince the Judge that some or all of your claim has 'little reasonable prospects of success', whilst you will should advance argument to the Judge that you do have reasonable prospects of success. The format of the hearing is down the Judge. Sometimes Judges will allow one party to put forward all of their arguments, and then the other party responds, whilst at other times the hearing will be more fluid and the Judge will move from party to party addressing individual points. Either way you essentially need to explain why it is that your case is likely to win.

Clearly not knowing anything about your claim I have no idea what your prospects are, though if you want to either outline in the case in this thread or send me a PM I'll be happy to help you more in that respect if I can.

Crazy_Jamie

makeyourdaddyproud wrote: »

So, as an example, the OP got fired after accruing costs such as overpayments, the employer chased them, they ignored correspondence (probably because they were too skint to repay) thus forcing a court case to recover the costs?

No; we're talking about the legal costs incurred by parties during Employment Tribunal proceedings. The general rule is that parties cannot recover their legal costs. For example, if a Claimant brings a claim for unfair dismissal and sex discrimination, they may incur legal costs if they seek advice from a solicitor or have a barrister representing them at the final hearing. Equally their employer may incur legal costs for the same reasons. If the Claimant wins at the final hearing, they will receive damages but will not recover the legal costs that they have incurred. Same for the Respondent if the claim fails. There are, however, some exceptions. One of those is that if the Respondent feels that all or part of a claim has little reasonable prospects of success, they can ask the Tribunal for a Deposit Order, the consequences of which I have explained in my previous post.

To follow the example through, it may be in the example above that the Respondent believes the discrimination claim to be spurious, and therefore asks the Tribunal for a Deposit Order. Let's say the Claimant is ordered to pay a £500 deposit in relation to the sex discrimination claim but pushes regardless. They win the unfair dismissal claim but the sex discrimination claim fails for the same reasons that the Judge suspected it would at the hearing where the Deposit Order is made. In that case the Claimant would receive damages relating to the unfair dismissal claim, but would likely see the deposit paid to the Respondent on the basis of unreasonable conduct.

Perhaps not the clearest example, but hopefully it is clear enough.

Skullers

It's for unfair dismissal and disability discrimination. The investigation and disciplinary process went on for 8 months during which I was suspended. This all happened after I had just returned to work after being off on sick for social anxiety disorder and depression. another colleague who was named as having done the same thing as me was not even investigated. I raised a written grievance about how I was being treated and that leaving me in limbo for this long is making my mental health deteriorate further. The respondent ignores my grievance which totally humiliated me. Shortly after the grievance I was summarily dismissed at a hearing that I was not invited to. The discrimination is based on them not making adjustments to the whole disciplinary process to ensure that this matter was dealt with quickly and without the need to keep me under stress for such a prolonged period of time.

The respondent refuses to disclose my occupational health reports saying that they are not relevant. They say my case is weak and want me to withdraw for £500. So just wanted to have an idea of what I need to do at phr so that no deposit is ordered against me.

Thanks for the info so far!

Richard6

Can they legally ignore your written grievance? Surely they have breached employment laws on that alone. Why did your occupational health provider not give you copies of the reports prior to giving your employer a copy? This gives you the chance to ammend errors of fact or even withhold the report if you choose so though your employer can hold the latter against you. If your were denied access to the report prior to being sent and not a case that you signed a statement allowing it to be sent without approval, they (both parties) have breached your rights "access to medical reports". I would file a written complaint to the GMC against the doctor / physician who wrote any reports disclosed without your approval if the case and seek further legal advice to guide you with this.

Skullers

Had phr today and the employment judge dismissed the respondents application for deposits. The judge explained that he thought I had more than a reasonable chance of success. Went as well as it could do. Thanks for your help Crazy Jamie!