I wonder if you'd be quite so brave about having a go at others without any justification at all if you weren't on an anonymous website?

Ok because your bias has been exposed you now try another style

The Ad Hominem Argument which means attack the personality or character of another.

The thing is its never going to be perfect and its people like us that suffer, those people who are always just over the earnings threshold for everything but barely have enough to get by. it just upsets me so much, we nearly lost everything because of what happened we were only just able to borrow enough to cover our rent and put everything else on credit cards but his former employer gets away scott free not having to even give him the sick pay he was entitled to, it was never about getting compensation as such to us it was about the fact that he couldn't claim benefits for six months because he should have been getting ssp and we couldn't prove he wasn't because his former employer wouldn't give us anything to say he wasn't paying it because obviously then he would have opened himself up to the tribunal going against him, it was about getting that sick pay that he was entitled to and we so desperately needed.

 

Although I do know someone who stole from his boss (a four figure sum), boss sacked him but he ended up getting compensation for unfair dismissal which obviously isn't fair either

My advice is simply this; get official advice

Go to ACAS, the Union, the CAB or the Employment Tribunal

If it is found to be wrong then you will have a valid defence.

I was told by ACAS that I could proceed with my claim,

If it is found to be wrong then I wouldn't be liable because I took advice from a recognized body.

I'm not questioning the competence of anyone here or anywhere but just having a defence if things don't go according to plan.

I don't want a situation where I would discover too late that I could have brought a claim and didn't.

It would hurt badly

Ok because your bias has been exposed you now try another style

 

The Ad Hominem Argument which means attack the personality or character of another.

What???!!!! YOU attacked me. Are you insane?

And I'd bother to respond to your second post if I cared enough to, but for the sake of others who might read this - ACAS do not and cannot give legal advice. It is outside their terms, even if you didn't take into account that their front line staff are unqualified in anything other than reading scripts. So it is absolute rubbish to say that a person isn't liable for their actions if they take advice from ACAS - whatever is meant by "liability". What I would recommend is that people take advice from someone who knows what they are talking about. You clearly do not.

PS - Ah now, on checking your history, I see... you are a legal expert on every subject under the sun who loves to attack people giving good advice, but don't have any good advice of your own. Great trolling, keep it up. I'll be ignoring you from now on. Hopefully nobody will be foolish enough to follow your advice, Sure it isn't YOU working for the other side? You do seem to enjoy misleading people.

What???!!!! YOU attacked me. Are you insane?

 

And I'd bother to respond to your second post if I cared enough to, but for the sake of others who might read this - ACAS do not and cannot give legal advice. It is outside their terms, even if you didn't take into account that their front line staff are unqualified in anything other than reading scripts. So it is absolute rubbish to say that a person isn't liable for their actions if they take advice from ACAS - whatever is meant by "liability". What I would recommend is that people take advice from someone who knows what they are talking about. You clearly do not.

 

PS - Ah now, on checking your history, I see... you are a legal expert on every subject under the sun who loves to attack people giving good advice, but don't have any good advice of your own. Great trolling, keep it up. I'll be ignoring you from now on. Hopefully nobody will be foolish enough to follow your advice, Sure it isn't YOU working for the other side? You do seem to enjoy misleading people.

The Individual could get advice from ACAS

He could get advice from the Union

He could get advice from the Employment Tribunal

He could get advice from the CAB

He should get advice from as many recognized organization as he could.

I don't see why it is a problem for someone to get advice.

Here again, you are attacking the qualification of ACAS front line staff when you have no idea if they have received any briefings.

I will repeat my advice; get official advice.

I do not know it all and I don't think anybody does but the safest is to get official advice.

If it is wrong you have a defence.

And it would be best if it is in an email.

Given the ruling from The Supreme Court, does anyone know if fees paid will be automatically refunded, or need to be claimed for.

Having taken a case a couple of years ago, for constructive dismissal, the maximum fees were paid - including the hearing fee. The case was settled the day before the hearing, but obviously that fee was still paid too. Finances have been tight ever since, so a refund of fees will be very handy.

I agree with this.

 

Instead of rehearsing what isn't fair, because I do agree, but that isn't getting us anywhere, can you please explain what actually happened? Let's try and see if we can get a result, even if it may not be everything you'd wish. Tell us what happened and give us some timescales too. We might be able to help get a little justice for you.

I posted about it at the time, advice was to go to employment tribunal which in the end we couldnt afford to do. Our lawyer said there wasnt anything else we could do and his former employer folded his company to avoid goingto court as it turned out he had done at least once before with another former employee. Had we been able to see the process through at the time we may have been able to recover something before the company folded but we couldnt affordit

 

I will repeat my advice; get official advice.

Which would be from a solicitor, who you pay. They are then liable for the quaity of the advice they guve you. Everything else is just process advice, or opinion.

You seem obsessed with having a defence. Note it has to be a GOOD defence. No point tilting at windmills

Unfortunately I have to agree. The solicitor should have told you to claim the money through the county court though, which would have been cheaper. But since the company is now gone, there is no further action of any sort that can be taken.

If the company is gone there is no action that can be taken - unless this person knew that the company owed money, and paid company funds to himself (or to a phoenix company) without paying creditors. That would be a fraud on the company's creditors and would trigger personal liability of the individual or company which received the funds.

If the company is gone there is no action that can be taken - unless this person knew that the company owed money, and paid company funds to himself (or to a phoenix company) without paying creditors. That would be a fraud on the company's creditors and would trigger personal liability of the individual or company which received the funds.

Proving that, of course, is the catch. We all know people who have actually done this and we know they have. But a very intelligent guess about somebody with a track record is a far cry from evidence.

Given the ruling from The Supreme Court, does anyone know if fees paid will be automatically refunded, or need to be claimed for.

 

Having taken a case a couple of years ago, for constructive dismissal, the maximum fees were paid - including the hearing fee. The case was settled the day before the hearing, but obviously that fee was still paid too. Finances have been tight ever since, so a refund of fees will be very handy.

Sorry, I missed this in amongst the other responses. The fact is that we currently don't know. No announcements have been made. As soon as we know more we'll make sure something is put on the site.

Sorry, I missed this in amongst the other responses. The fact is that we currently don't know. No announcements have been made. As soon as we know more we'll make sure something is put on the site.

Thanks Sangie. I was thinking of sending a quick email to the relevant ET, to see what they said. I'm guessing, as it's essentially Gov funds, that feet will be dragged.

The ET cannot and will not give you advice on time periods.

Actually, steampowered, I was going to give them the case number, fees paid and the dates they were, and ask for them to be refunded.

I don't understand why such a short time limit less than 3 months.

I know of several people, all with the same ex employer, that could have gone to ET, but didn't because of the fees. Sadly, they're now out of time.

I don't understand why such a short time limit less than 3 months.

Several reasons, but the two primary ones are that when tribunals were first set up their intention was to give quick results and immediate financial relief to people treated unfairly. That had been overtaken by lengthier lists and more complex cases than used to end up in tribunals. But linked to that is a simple fact. It's either unfair and you can prove it, or it isn't and/or you can't. As a rule of thumb, if you don't have evidence of unfair dismissal when it happens, evidence rarely turns up after the event. It does happen, but not often. The time limit was set in a different period, when things were simpler. Personally I'd think six months might be better now, but honestly, that isn't likely to happen. And I don't think anyone with two brain cells wants to encourage the government (almost any government these days) to review primary legislation! Otherwise we may end up with something a lot worse!

I agree that the 3 month time limit is too short. It catches a lot of people out.

The reality is that the Tribunals have taken an extremely tough line on this. Extensions are rarely granted. Perhaps this will change following the abolition of tribunal fees, we will have to wait and see.

It seems incredibly unfair when you consider that most other types of claim have a 6 year time limit. The courts are perfectly capable of dealing with a 6 year time limit for every other type of claim so I don't see why employment claims need to be any different. There are plenty of non-employment cases which face issues around old evidence, the courts seem to handle it perfectly well.

I suspect the real answer is that (1) employment rights are statutory rather than based on common law, so are easier to change and (2) employment rights are highly political. This leads to unnecessarily complicated legislation being put in place to protect employees, followed a few years later by arbitrary restrictions on those rights to reduce the perceived burden on businesses. It isn't just the 3 month point - various (mostly conservative) governments have implemented a number of other restrictions too - for example the length of continuous employment you need to have to bring an unfair dismissal claim was recently increased from 1 year to 2 years.

Thanks for both your time to answer - glad the fees been abolished now, hopefully won't have to go through all this again.

I just saw this;

https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/case-management-order-no-131-president-employment-tribunals-e-and-w-re-unison-2-20170818.pdf

I believe it is relevant to this topic.

https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/case-management-order-no-131-president-employment-tribunals-e-and-w-re-unison-2-20170818.pdf

the link works if you change the upper case .PDF to lower case, or:

https://tinyurl.com/ybf47r87

"...will be announced shortly" define shortly. Could be weeks, or months!

Just thought I'd update as I read this yesterday -

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/law/tribunal-fee-refunds-finally-open-to-all/5063708.article

It is also confirmed on the MOJ website -

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/applications-open-for-employment-tribunal-fee-refunds-as-scheme-rolls-out

The opening phase of the refund scheme is complete and has been successful, therefore the MOJ are rolling this out to all potential claimants...

Thanks Supervillain. I found the same yesterday.

Just thought I'd update as I read this yesterday -

 

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/law/tribunal-fee-refunds-finally-open-to-all/5063708.article

 

It is also confirmed on the MOJ website -

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/applications-open-for-employment-tribunal-fee-refunds-as-scheme-rolls-out

 

The opening phase of the refund scheme is complete and has been successful, therefore the MOJ are rolling this out to all potential claimants...

Thanks for this.