Award of Costs Against ET litigant in person
EAT PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE – Costs
The appeal challenges a decision to award costs based on a finding of unreasonable conduct by the Claimant and a subsequent refusal to reconsider that Order.
Having dealt with a number of earlier Preliminary Hearings, the Employment Judge was familiar with the pleadings and the issues to be addressed and was in the best position to consider and determine whether the Claimant’s conduct was unreasonable when looked at in the round and in the knowledge of the issues that would have to be dealt with at a Full Hearing if it came to it. The Employment Judge expressly recognised that the standard of pleading expected of a lawyer did not apply to the Claimant and that she could not be expected to provide a detailed legal pleading. However, the Employment Judge concluded that the Claimant should have been able to articulate in layman’s terms what it is that was said or done, by whom and on what dates that formed the basis of her complaints. The Employment Judge found that the Claimant was not able to do this on 12 May 2015. She gave a few examples of this inability. She found that the Claimant could not identify the dates of four of the six protected acts referred to, nor the detriments relied upon, nor the names and characteristics of actual or hypothetical comparators for the direct and harassment discrimination claims. The Employment Judge held that the significance of the Claimant’s inability to relay the dates of the acts was highlighted in the hearing when she concluded that certain alleged detrimental acts pre-dated the protected acts relied on and thus could not be pursued. The Employment Judge concluded that, notwithstanding that the Claimant is a litigant in person and not to be held to the standards of a lawyer, given the number of earlier hearings at which detailed particulars were sought to be elicited from her, her inability to provide the particulars required at the hearing on 12 May 2015 amounted to unreasonable conduct.
The grounds disclosed no arguable error of law relating to either decision. The finding of unreasonable conduct was not based on inability alone. The decision is adequately reasoned and causation adequately identified. Nor was the high threshold for a perversity appeal even arguably established.
Simler DBE P J
[2016] UKEAT 0065 – 16 – 2806, [2016] UKEAT 0002 – 16 – 2806
Bailii, Bailii
England and Wales
Employment, Costs
Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.570974
