Costs awards in the Employment Tribunal are similar to lightening – rare, but nasty when it hits and you never see it coming. Last year costs awards were in keeping with the pattern in previous years – awarded in only 1 in 400 cases. This is a relatively low rate, but is this about to change?
The Employment Tribunal does appear to be taking a more robust attitude to costs awards. In Vaughan v London Borough of Lewisham & Ors [2013] UKEAT/0533/12/0606 costs of £87,000 were awarded against the claimant and approved by the EAT. Poor Ms Vaughan (who was unemployed and not wealthy) hadn’t even received a costs warning or deposit order. It was probably small comfort to her that the £87,000 she was ordered to pay was only a third of the respondent’s costs!
In Howman v The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Kings Lynn UKEAT/0509/12/JOJ the unlucky claimant was ordered to pay £43,000 although he had at least received a costs warning. The EAT confirmed the order, with costs on the indemnity basis, but at least asked the original Tribunal to re-consider the fact that the order would wipe him out financially, and cause him to lose his family home.
Financial rigor and less tolerance of poor claims seems to be the order of the day. The only good news is that our FeeSafe insurance policy covers claimants against the risk of adverse costs. Quite a coincidence I should mention it really.
Simon Pinner spent 15 years handling a large variety of Employment Tribunal claims – the largest involving 150 claimants each seeking 6 years underpayment of shift-work wages! Together with his fellow director Daniel Morris he headed a personal injury department of 85 staff and more recently he and Daniel have directed Box Legal to its current substantial share of the ATE market with well over 250 solicitor firms on the “ClaimSafe” panel.