An employment judge has shared his ‘considerable sympathy’ for any litigant in person involved in ‘complicated litigation’ after dismissing a claimant’s application.
The claimant, named as Ms C Harvey, was represented by her daughter, an experienced lawyer but not an employment lawyer. The relationship was 'personal and supportive’ but she was not ‘legally represented’, employment judge Tobias Vincent Ryan, sitting in Wrexham, said.
Harvey’s claims of disability discrimination, victimisation and unauthorised deductions from wages against the Secretary of State for Justice were dismissed in full by oral judgment. Written judgment was handed down the following day and Harvey made an application for a preparation time order, a type of costs order.
The judge accepted ‘the preparation for the hearing was not smooth’ and Harvey and ‘her representative put a considerable amount of work into it’. Dismissing the application, however, he said: ‘I am not satisfied that [the claimant and her representative] have established that the respondent acted in such a way as to justify a preparation time order’.
In the judgment, he said: ‘I have considerable sympathy for any litigant in person involved in such complicated litigation, especially facing professionally represented opponents. Litigation is difficult; it is labour intensive. It is difficult and labour intensive for legal representatives as well, but they may be used to it and they are at least familiar with the tribunal’s requirements and what will be required by both parties at a hearing if it is to be a fair hearing.
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‘For the uninitiated litigation must seem like an opaque barrier to having one’s claims, complaints, and grievances aired and considered. It may be felt at the system is not ideal, however it is the best that we have got.
‘The parties and the tribunal have to deal not only with the complexity of the law, the rigours of the rules, but also human nature and the fact that unplanned and unforeseen circumstances may arise that hinder smooth preparation.’
Both parties had ‘quite innocently…made a lot of work for each other and themselves’, the judgment said adding that it was ‘necessitated by the depth and complexity of the claims’.
‘Neither side prepared perfectly, and neither could they be expected to. I am however satisfied that both parties were able to prepare fairly, and neither was disadvantaged by the conduct of the other in terms of being able to put forward their evidence and argue their case. I am satisfied that there was a fair hearing.’
