would the small claims court be the best place for this please?

[mckenzie]

DH employed a guy back in november via an agency. To summarise, he actually worked just 21 days before flying home because his mother was ill and then in the New Year, deciding to resign. His contract says that he must give 2 months notice.
DS is out of the pocket the agency fees (£5000) plus now has nobody in place to dot he rols that this guy was doing and with a deadline of mid february that leaves him in sh.t.

Can we sue the guy through the small claims courtt for breach of contract?

TIA

I would start with the agency and see how you get o.Failing that then small claims would be your best bet.However-if he ups sticks back home againn then you may struggle (assuming this is overseas)?

thanks SJW. We have tried the agency but although he only gave us 21 days work it was over a 31 day period because of the christmas holidays and our contract with the agency only gave us a refund if he left within 30 days! the agency are being quite arsey about it so we wsont get anything back from them.
His home town is Denmark but he has a permanent UK address.

Hmmm-because of the Xmas thing it may well be worth persuing the agency again-and actually, you could go after them and the guy.
Is it a local agency?
Have you had anyone from them before?

Any damage you could do to their reputation if they were to ignore your reasonable request?

Maybe not a total refund but I do think at least half wold be reasonable.

i've suggested to Dh that we contact some of the people who have given testimonials on their website and we think the 30 days that was in the agency contract is a bit fishy. Everyone else I have spoken to, wothout exception, says it should be a rolling refund based on how soon they leave, ie 100% within 30 days, 75% with 80 days or somehting like that. It will; be interesting to see what terms the other clients have had in their contracts.

the terms other people have in their contracts is completely irrelevant. it is the terms in YOUR contract that matter.

the suggestion/advice to badmouth the agency to other clients is not clever, and will certainly not endear you to the courts if you do eventually go and seek redress there.

please don't take legal advice from sickjealousandworried who is not a lawyer. why don't you go to the CAB with both contracts and see what they suggest. however you might like to consider that your time might be better spent finding someone to help your DH achieve his february deadline, not chasing an agency who is probably not liable and a bloke from denmark who clearly doesn't want to perform the job.

thanks PPH. we weren't intending to badmouth the agency just to clarify the position that we think we are in.
Namely that the guy was in cohoots with the agency, they knew that he was planning to return to Denmark in the new year hence they made our contract 30 days only. (we aren't grabbing st straws here, we have reasons to believe that this was the case).

At the end of the day, it has been a huge learning curve for us (we're only a relative small company but we are growing very rapidly and some things are running away with us, ie. HR, admin and staff management etc).

I shall try the CAB today though.
Unfortunately I can't help DH with his deadline as, thankfully, I know nothing about oil and gas tankers

Could you get friends to contact the agency with a supposed placement and ask for their terms and conditions? At least that way you could see if your contract was radically different from their normal one.

I was thinking about you just now freckle. I called the CAB number that you posted back in about feb of last year I think (I searched old messages for info on CAB).

A very helpful lady has pointed me towards the DTI Employment Agency Standards and we think we may have found some points that we can use. I need to do some more homework tonight once I have the original contract etc in front of me but I think we might possibly have a case. Fingers crossed and thanks for your idea too - I think i might well try that too.

Can I make a confession? That very helpful lady was me!

You can't imagine the surprise when you called and told me a story which I'd just read on mn. Couldn't confess to being a closet mner in the office as too many ears. Also couldn't suggest the subterfuge suggested in my last post as that isn't really CAB advice .

oh Freckle . Thank goodness I said nice things about you huh!
I was thinking when I put the phone down "wouldn't that be funny if it was Freckle".

Karma.

Freckle - I've done lots of homework tonight and I have two calls to make tomorrow. The DTI have an Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate that have a helpline and so do ACAS.
I have found a discrepancy in our dealings with the agency (I wont bore you with all the details) but it might be just enough to get us something.

That's great. If you don't mind spilling, the details won't bore me!