Particulars of Claim rejected

[Deleted User]

LauraM1968 wrote: »

Hi all,

I'm making a claim against an employer as they have breached the Equality Act 2010 by discriminating against me on the basis of my particular expression of a protected characteristic. After a long period of fruitless "investigations", being stonewalled, not getting any engagement from them etc, I decided to take them to small claims court. I sent off the N1 form which included a detailed particulars of claim statement (two pages, around 1,400 words) which I attached as a separate piece of paper. I also included a large number of additional documents which I referred to within the particulars of claim (eg "as seen in XX's email to YY of [DD/MM/YY], document 11). On Thursday I received a standard letter from the court advising that the claim would be struck out unless I re-submitted my particulars of claim, using the following wording:

"Unless the Claimant do file and serve Particulars of claim setting out the legal basis of his claim, in particulars quoting any law or statutes with relevant clauses he relies upon and alleged breaches therefore by the Defendant by 4pm on 21 February 2018, the claim do stand struck out."

I'd be very grateful for any advice forum members could provide. Do I need to reference more explicitly the particular parts of the legislation (in this case the Equality Act 2010)? I literally just referenced it once at the beginning of the particulars and didn't mention any sections or provide any wording. Also, should I not have included the evidence? I provided a copy of the whole thing to the defendant too. Finally, can I just reply to the court with an amended particulars (and provide a copy to the defendant) or do I need to apply for permission to do so? I found an older thread on here from 2007 where a member had a similar issue and they were advised they'd need first to get permission from the court (and perhaps the defendant?) to amend their particulars. This seems like a bit of a faff when the court has requested that I do so, but I completely understand if that is the legal process.

The claim is for two counts of direct discrimination - £4,000 per count, £8,000 in total.

Many thanks.

In the first line you say they are your employer and then later you say they are not your employer. Which is it?

Boaty_McBoatface

camelot1971 wrote: »

In the first line you say they are your employer and then later you say they are not your employer. Which is it?

Explained in post #4

bris

This is far to complicated for this forum, you need proper legal advice.


The small claims court won't want to touch this as it's not what they normally hear. Proving discrimination is beyond a simple court such as a small claims court.


In Scotland this would be heard in the sheriff court using the ordinary cause summons as it's over £5000.


Even if you did manage to get this to the small claims court any decent solicitor on the other side would be able to have this transferred to the slow track.


The County Court is I believe the English version of the Scottish Sheriff court.

steampowered

bris wrote: »

The small claims court won't want to touch this as it's not what they normally hear. Proving discrimination is beyond a simple court such as a small claims court.

Even if you did manage to get this to the small claims court any decent solicitor on the other side would be able to have this transferred to the slow track.

So long as the maximum amount being claimed by the Op is clear from their claim form and particulars and the amount is less than £10k, the case would generally get allocated to SCT.

The rules say the SCT is the ordinary track for claims of less than £10k, and while there are exceptions for things like harassment and unlawful eviction claims, discrimination is not one of the exceptions - see https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part26#26.6.

I think this would go to SCT unless the claim involved complicated issues of fact likely to require a trial lasting longer than a day. If the facts of the Op's claim are straightforward and only requires one or two witnesses to be present, the SCT process should be sufficient.

Small claims track has the same very experienced judges as fast track and is still a proper court process, they are able of dealing with difficult issues (within the limited amount of time in front of the judge you get in court for a small claim).

The County Court is I believe the English version of the Scottish Sheriff court.

The County Courts cover all tracks and deal with the full range of cases ranging from £100 to several hundred thousand.

In England & Wales, any claim for damages of less than £100k must be started in the County Court.

Above £100k, claimants usually have a choice whether to sue in the County Court or High Court depending on the complexity of the case (with a few exceptions and limits I won't go into here).