Employment Law Explained

Tag Archives: serial litigants

Parasites and Legal Rights

Posted on 05/01/2011 by Michael Scutt • 3 Comments

iStock 000011314964XSmall Parasites and Legal Rights practice procedure news

First day back from the festive break and The Times, which must be short of contributors at the moment, rehashes the old argument about employees and their lawyers holding poor innocent small businesses to ransom.

Yesterday’s edition contained an opinion piece from Helen Giles,  HR Director of a business called Broadway which apparently provides services to homeless people.  Her theme?  “Stop legal parasites feeding on small business”(*) This morning the story made it onto the Today programme on Radio 4 and a much more useful discussion, chaired by Evan Davis.

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Filed Under: News, Practice & Procedure

Can Recruiters Relax on Age Discrimination in Advertisements?

Posted on 15/11/2010 by Michael Scutt • 0 Comments

Are you a recruiter worried about what to write in a job advert?  Or concerned about inadvertently discriminating against applicants on the grounds of age?

It’s a difficult area and care needs to be taken.  However, some comfort can be taken from  a recent  case in the Employment Appeal Tribunal (“EAT”), which held that serial litigants may have to pay costs if they try to exploit the Age Discrimination Regulations for financial gain.

This is a preview of Can Recruiters Relax on Age Discrimination in Advertisements?. Read the full post (328 words, 2 images, estimated 1:19 mins reading time)
Filed Under: Age Discrimination, Practice & Procedure

How to Deter a Serial Litigant

Posted on 16/06/2010 by Michael Scutt • 4 Comments
iStock 000008730762XSmall How to Deter a Serial Litigant practice procedure miscellaneous stuff

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 is a preview of How to Deter a Serial Litigant. Read the full post (340 words, 1 image, estimated 1:22 mins reading time)
Filed Under: Miscellaneous Stuff, Practice & Procedure

Do Employees Have it All Their Own Way?

Posted on 26/04/2010 by Michael Scutt • 1 Comment

iStock 000011687373XSmall Do Employees Have it All Their Own Way? practice procedure

How not to Resolve a Dispute or Why Employees should never try to wear traffic cones

(picture right)  How Not to Resolve Disputes or Why Employees Should Never Wear Traffic Cones

This is a preview of Do Employees Have it All Their Own Way?. Read the full post (754 words, 1 image, estimated 3:01 mins reading time)
Filed Under: Practice & Procedure

Truly I can see the Future

Posted on 29/01/2010 by Michael Scutt • 1 Comment

Truly I can see the future. A few weeks ago I wrote on this blog about a website run by Gordon Turner and Damien McCarthy, the two employment lawyers who set up www.serial-litigants.com, designed to keep a check on those claimants who repeatedly bring claims against different employers (or potential employers) for the same thing – usually discrimination claims.  I welcomed the scheme but thought that it might hit problems with the Data Protection Act, which governs what information can be held on people and how it can be used.  Then, lo and behold, I received this email from Gordon Turner a few days ago;

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Filed Under: Data Protection, News