Employment Tribunal Advice

[wtfisgoingonhere]

So long story short hubby was dismissed from work last year following mental health issues.

We appealed it, went through ACAS conciliation and now made a claim to an ET for discrimination.

Until last month I was representing him and whilst nervous felt pretty positive about the whole thing

Contacted my insurers re legal cover and they put me in touch with a solicitor who appraised our case. In the meantime I became aware we were going to miss a deadline so asked solicitors advice and she then contacted tribunal on our behalf (as doctors couldn't get us medical report in time) to (successfully) request an extension.

She calls yesterday to say she can't represent us as evidence is word against word and that's 50/50 and to take in on via insurers must be 51%

That's fine except I receive her report today which assesses some of his claims as 40%

My question is, based on the solicitor assessment, is it worth me continuing to pursue this

Or more specifically would you?

If your solicitor doesn't think it's worth pursuing then you stand a high risk of losing your fees (presumably in Excess of £1000?). Can you afford that?

Do you agree with her assessment of the evidence. Not what happened. Look at the evidence and whether her conclusions include all the relevant evidence. Try and step.back from what you know and look at what you can prove.

I am a solicitor, in house, so not an employment expert. I have taken 2 cases to the ET where I was convinced we were in the right, defending claims, and had reasonable evidence. When we instructed barristers at the 11th hour, both times they said that we would probably win, but the best odds were 60/40.

We won both hands down. So sometimes people err on side of caution.

Difficult to advise really....I think you need more info as to why she thinks 50/50 and not 51/49.

Oh yes, I would always tell clients that tribunals are unpredictable. It depends where the he said / I said comes in. Remember there are two lay members and they will be placing a lot of weight on who they believe.

Unless there was a technical issue with the claim (e.g unfair dismissal without qualifying service ) lawyers rarely go higher than 60/40 or possibly 70/30 for tribunal hearings.

Thank you all

I don't entirely agree with some of her assessment (but she is the expert) and some of it is on the basis of not seeing evidence of what was said/done (we hadn't sent these over yet - emails as below )

Hubby feels unable to call witnesses (small office and team members still work there/fear of repercussions ) and a lot of what was said was directly to him out of earshot of others.

Other than his word against there's/ex manager he has emails he sent to me/texts he sent to me at the time about how he was treated, /what was said, some from personal email, some from work account so don't know how much that would /wouldn't count for as 'evidence'

Libraries - there is no technical issue just discrimination /harassment. Feel better re the lay people. I didn't realise that before