Employment Tribunal Hearing grounds of discrimination ( pregnancy )

[andydub64]

Hi

 

What are the best options to enforce a judgment ?

 

Sorry having problems with posting, my mistake.

 

I would be obliged if someone could advice on what enforcement procedure would be more suitable against and individual as opposed to a company in Employment tribunal judgment recently secured by my daughter.

[honeybee13]

Here's a link to your previous thread, AD64.

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?459367-Employment-Tribunal-Hearing&p=4862950#post4862950

 

HB

[BazzaS]

Sorry having problems with posting, my mistake.

 

I would be obliged if someone could advice on what enforcement procedure would be more suitable against and individual as opposed to a company in Employment tribunal judgment recently secured by my daughter.

 

https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money/enforce-a-judgment

 

Which option is best depends on the judgement debtor's circumstances, and without knowledge of these it will be difficult for reliable advice to be offered.

Edited February 21, 2016 by Andyorch
Link fixed

[andydub64]

The debtors circumstances as I understand it is that he offers financial services which include providing insurance, loans as an independent going concern.

 

I would have assumed that he would be and giving the nature of his business financially in a position to meet the judgement.

 

That's just my opinion.

[BazzaS]

The debtors circumstances as I understand it is that he offers financial services which include providing insurance, loans as an independent going concern.

 

I would have assumed that he would be and giving the nature of his business financially in a position to meet the judgement.

 

That's just my opinion.

 

More his financial circumstances......

 

Does he take a salary, where an attachment of earnings order might be useful?.

Does he own a nice expensive car, where bailiff's / HCEO's "taking control of goods' might yield funds or act as a lever to amke him settle the judgement debt?

Does he have bank accounts with monies in, or is due payment from 3rd party companies, where a 3rd party Debt order would be useful?

Does he own property where you could obtain a charging order? (although unless you can also get an 'order for sale', you may end up waiting a long time for your money).

 

Does he have assets / income at all (if not, you 'can't get blood from a stone', and making an application to the court to make him attend for questioning as to his finances would involve a cost that you then might not recover). Otherwise, if you don;t know which is your best option, the court enquiring as to his financial circumstances may help .....

 

 

Who is your judgement against, him or his business? (although, if he is e.g. a sole trader , they may be effectively one and the same...)

[andydub64]

It was originally against his company but the judge at the Preliminary hearing raised some doubt to the legal entity of the respondent named in the action because she on the morning of the hearing made subsequent enquiries with Companies house.

 

There was something not quite right and my theory was that he was engineering a move to avoid the company being liable for any debt, and in the event of my daughter winning her case.

 

For that reason I made application to have him as respondent as I assumed any debt he personally would be liable to pay.

[AndyOrch]

Thread moved to General Legal Issues.

 

Regards

 

Andy

[BazzaS]

It was originally against his company but the judge at the Preliminary hearing raised some doubt to the legal entity of the respondent named in the action because she on the morning of the hearing made subsequent enquiries with Companies house.

 

There was something not quite right and my theory was that he was engineering a move to avoid the company being liable for any debt, and in the event of my daughter winning her case.

 

For that reason I made application to have him as respondent as I assumed any debt he personally would be liable to pay.

 

Was / is his company a Ltd company?

Who is the judgement made against, him or his company?

[andydub64]

The company were adamant for reasons unknown to distance themselves from being a Ltd company.

 

And the judgment was against him as he was the named respondent as opposed to the company who the Court ordered as being the new respondent.

 

On the day of judgement he was the respondent

[steampowered]

You should get the judgment automatically, it is worth calling the tribunal if you don't receive it very shortly.

[andydub64]

The individual is a broker and from what my daughter says, he works as the middle man between his customers and the larger finance companies.

 

From those options of enforcement's I am minded to make application under the 3rd party debt order.

 

Is there any limit on enforcement orders say for sake that I could apply for removal of goods and a 3rd party debt order running parallel at the same time? Thanks

[andydub64]

When I enquired a few weeks back the Tribunal said that the period is 28 days.

 

Or upto 28 days.

[steampowered]

Engaging HCEOs is usually the easiest option.

 

Third party debt orders are possible but you would need to be more involved in the process and you would need to identify the third party against whom a third party debt order needs to be served.

 

You can apply for parallel enforcement options at the same time, but this will result in incurring unnecessary fees which you might not be able to get back from the defendant. I think it is best to choose an enforcement method you think will work and stick with it.

[steampowered]

There are 28 day deadlines for various things but I'm not sure providing a judgment is one of those things. Best to enquire again with the Tribunal.

[andydub64]

Tribunal have just confirmed that they have this morning received the judgment from the assigned Court and will now be forwarding this on now.

[andydub64]

Thanks,

 

That's the problem that I am having, deciding what would be form of enforcement to rely on, in such event.

 

The respondent deals in finance so I've got a sneaky feeling that he may well feel that he will use this to get out of paying the judgment.

 

Would the respondent be covered by an indemnity insurance or are such policies not covered for judgments.

[andydub64]

Hi,

 

I have previously instructed a solicitor to act and to take instructions in regards to any potential claim for damages, on the grounds that a previous solicitor was negligent as he failed to act on instructions.

 

Both my solicitor and on taking advice from a barrister, were minded and in agreement that the actions were more likely than not, professional.

 

This was after the pre action protocol had been adopted and followed by my solicitor.

 

My question is this,

I am now considering Court action against the solicitor who was negligent, and despite my solicitor following the protocol, the insurance company are stating that if I want to take court action against their client I will again need to follow the pre action protocol, this despite previos legal representation who were acting on my behalf following that procedure before Court action can be initiated.

 

Either the insurance company are trying to buy another three,month's or am I right in thinking as previous legal representation on my instructions have complied with this on my behalf, which enables me to take the appropriate action via the Civil courts.

 

Any advice, as always would be greatly appreciated.

[Ganymede]

You have given very little detail but from what you say if you have already gone through the pre-action protocol via your solicitors then you shouldn't have to go through it again just because you are no longer using those solicitors, unless you are now alleging something totally new and different?

[andydub64]

No, the allegations are as they were and nothing has changed.

 

What is evident is that any grounds that I felt I had T established during the pre action period, by my solicitor.

 

The professional negligence oddly enough is partially based on the original solicitor not following the protocol under a Disrepair case, which would include any Personal Injury claim as was the case,

 

 

because of the disrepair,

which they were fully aware of,

but maintained were not issues,

which would have been issued had the solicitor followed the protocol which as I now understand, was a professional obligation.

 

The Disrepair claim was subject to a compromise agreement,

but on the instructions that I reserved any legal entitlement I had to make a separate claim for PI,

 

 

not only was this not acted upon and disclosed as part of any agreement to compromise, the fact that I was told to sign the compromise would by the wording on the agreement deny me any future rights to claim for PI.

 

The solicitors acting said that my original solicitor was (a) negligent in failing to take instructing (b) negligent in allowing me to sign the compromise agreement, because this was in effect me giving up any rights I had to claim PI as a result of the disrepair.

[andydub64]

Hi

 

A question on costs, should the judge who will be dealing with my daughters cost application be made aware of our attempts on " as to save cost on a without prejudice basis" before the trial that was offered to the representive acting for the respondent?

 

I am not quite sure but I am sure that I have read this needs to be relayed to the judge as to consider the cost application.

 

As always, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[steampowered]

Good news to hear that you are about to get the judgment! Now the deadline for payment can start running.

 

Yes, 'without prejudice save as to costs' correspondence can be used in relation to a costs application. 'without prejudice' generally means that the correspondence cannot be used as evidence to decide the case, but it can be used on the issue of costs.

 

On costs, do read the rules I linked to earlier very carefully. The key point to note is that to get costs you need to show the other side behaved badly. The focus is on the other side's conduct, not on your conduct. The fact that you acted reasonably and tried to settle is very nice but does not by itself get costs.

 

In other words, saying that 'I acted very reasonably by trying to settle' does not help you get costs. To get costs it would need to be something a bit more like 'the other side behaved unreasonably by failing to consider or respond to my very reasonable settlement offers'.

 

If you want to start attaching new correspondence to your costs application, however, the application does become a little more complicated as you are essentially giving the judge new information which he did not have at the hearing. This increases the chance of an additional hearing being arranged to decide the costs issue rather than having the thing dealt with on paper.

[andydub64]

Thanks for that,

 

We are now in receipt of the judgment so another boxed ticked.

 

The judge who will consider the preparation cost application will be aware of the chronology of how the case was conducted, I do not want to burden him with proof that I followed what I had assumed the Tribunal would have expected both parties to achieve, a settlement as to save costs.

 

I gave a figure which was evidently more closer to the award, they offered £500, which incidentally was the first offer made via ACAS at the beginning of the litigation.

 

Whilst it is not for me to judge, the solicitor acting for the respondent did not act in the interest of justice and he did act on the fact that he was not and would not have got away with all he did, if my daughter had paid to be legally represented, which because of her finances was unable that reliance.

 

So if costs are awarded, and the solicitor was in anyway liable, it may deter him again from trying to take advantage of a women pregnant and without the funds needed to secure legal representation.

[andydub64]

Having now considered the judgement, i have notice that proceeding the Respondents name it has been inserted with the letters T/A, which i am to assume is reference as Trading As.

 

During proceedings, and as this has been documented during this thread it was my motivation to identify the respondent as an individual, as opposed to the Company and on application the Court ruled that the individual would be known as the respondent, and the legal entity of proceedings.

 

In a nutshell any liability to paying damages would be against the individual rather than the Company as this would deny any attempts not to pay award, by closing the business, and reopening under a new trade name?

 

The way this company have previously acted, my school of thought is that they are trying to engineer or find a loophole in the system to place liabilities on the company.

 

This is why i made the Court application which was successful as to identify the individual in place of the Company to block any liability being other than the named individual as respondent.

 

As always any help would be appreciated.

[steampowered]

A judgment against an individual T/A a trading name, is a judgment against an individual. Where someone is working as a sole trader it is normal to identify both the individual and their trading name.

 

Presumably the T/A name is not a limited company?

[andydub64]

This was what initially what they were pleading that the Company was not a limited company, and this was accepted.

 

If the company had been registered as s ltd, would that have made any difference?