Cereal Litigants?
There’s no need to resort to garlic, holy water, crucifixes, or rosary beads to keep them away (we’re not quite in Bram Stoker territory yet) but there’s no doubt that serial litigants are a blot on the ET landscape.
Following on from my previous posts on the subject, there was some good news a few weeks back in the EAT on the issue of what a claimant has to prove to succeed with a claim for age discrimination. The case of Keane v Investigo & others UKEAT/0389/09/SM, commented upon by Gordon Turner and Damian McCarthy in ELA Briefing last month[1], held that a claimant has to prove a genuine interest in performing the job advertised. There can be no detriment to an unsuccessful applicant if they had no interest in doing the job in the first place.
This decision may make it easier for employers to get these types of claim struck out. It will be necessary though to demonstrate that the Claimant has no genuine interest in the job and has a history of other unmeritorious claims because the ET is not quick to strike out. Factors to consider might include whether they had made applications for similar jobs, where the jobs were based, did the claimant have any background in that area as well as whether they are suitably qualified for the job and did they follow their application up or did they just rush off to the ET as soon as they were turned down. Serial litigants won’t go away, but they may well find their business model has just suffered a big dent.
Gordon Turner tells me that the Early Day Motion in Parliament, called before the election, criticising his Serial Litigants website, did not get enough support. It is to be hoped that the new government might take a fresh look at the whole serial litigants issue and consider what practical steps can be taken to stamp this abuse out.
[1] ELA BriefingVol 17 No 4 May 2010 Turner & McCarthy
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I love the vampire reference at the beginning! Serial Litagants are really complicated if you are not careful.
Thanks David. Have you had direct experience with a serial litigant(s) that you can share on here, on an anonymised basis of course.
Not me personally but a friend. It was a hard to go through for him. He had two lawyers working on his issue.
[...] The case before the EAT involved the same man who is alleged to have issued many cases against recruitment companies and employers alleging age discrimination in their job advertisements e.g “would suit school leaver” or “recent graduate”. I have written about the issues concerning serial litigants before (see here, here and here). [...]