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Summary Of Practice

Employment and Discrimination Law

Ben deals with claims arising during the currency and on termination of the employment relationship, in particular: injunctions; misuse of confidential information; restrictive covenants and garden leave clauses; breaches of contract and fiduciary duty; bonus entitlements. His Tribunal work (for applicants and respondents) includes unfair and wrongful dismissal; all forms of discrimination; transfer of undertakings; whistleblowing; redundancy. He also acts in internal and professional disciplinary hearings. In addition, he provides tailor-made workshops and topical courses for Solicitors or Managers with responsibility for investigating grievances and/or managing dismissal.

Personal Injury

Ben accepts instruction in PI cases with particular emphasis on claims for psychiatric injury arising out breach of contract and/or common duty of care.

Professional Negligence

Ben undertakes professional negligence claims with particular emphasis on disputes in which the underlying negligence is alleged to have arisen in employment context.

Professional Memberships

Bar Pro Bono Unit
Employment Lawyers Bar Association

Employment Lawyers Association

Selected Cases

Lodwick v London Borough of Southwark (2004) ICR 884 CA, Times Law Report 09/04/04

Sets down the correct approach for tribunals and appeal tribunals when bias is alleged; namely that an appeal tribunal was obliged, first, to test the tribunal's decision as to recusal by considering whether the fair-minded and informed observer, having considered the facts, would conclude that there was a real possibility that the tribunal was biased, but also to consider the proceedings as a whole and decide whether a perception of bias had arisen; the chairman, as the legally qualified and presiding member of a tribunal of three, had an important position and any apparent bias on his part would not be nullified by the presence of two lay members who might outvote him.

London Borough of Southwark v Bartholomew (2004) ICR 358 EAT

Review of tribunal's decision - held that it was impermissible for an employment tribunal to record that it was unusual for a local authority not to attend a hearing and yet not take any steps to find out whether there had been an oversight, particularly where contact details were stated on a document before them; that, even if, having done so, there was no attendance by the respondent, the tribunal might deal with liability, and possibly compensation, but it was wholly inappropriate to make a reinstatement order without proper consideration of the matters contemplated by section 116 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, including whether it would be just to order reinstatement where the applicant might have caused or contributed to some extent to his dismissal.

Frewin v Royal Mail Group Plc (2003) EAT

Capability Dismissal - is causation relevant to the issue of fairness in capability dismissals? - In this case, the EAT clarifies the tension between conflicting authorities: London Fire & Civil Defence Authority v Betty (1994) IRLR 384 and Edwards v Governors of Hanson School (2001) IRLR 733. http://www.employmentappeals.gov.uk/uploads/EAT098102962003/index.htm

Royal Mail Group Plc v Burkett (2003) CA

Reasonable Investigation - authority for the proposition that tribunals, when deciding whether an employer had reasonable grounds for its belief in misconduct, must set out and analyse the facts as found by the employer at the time of the dismissal (assuming the employer undertook a reasonable investigation) and that it is an error of law to set out facts as found by the tribunal, unless a clear distinction is drawn between what the tribunal decides occurred, and what the tribunal decides the employer thought occurred LINK: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2003/748.html

London Underground Ltd v Praful Shah (2001) EAT - LTL 20/08/2001

Compensatory Award for Unfair dismissal - Employer's conduct is irrelevant when assessing compensatory award for unfair dismissal.

Dr A Reza v General Medical Council (1998) EAT -LTL 19/05/98

Inference - in the absence of explanation from the GMC's Professional Conduct Committee on primary facts of discrimination, Employment Tribunal entitled to conclude that decision was not on racial grounds because discovery of similar cases from disclosed documents overcame Committee's lack of reason.

John Cornelius v London Borough of Southwark (1998) EWCA Civ 225

Contract - held that a teacher's dismissal is sustainable even where it arose out of a failure to comply with statutory regime for such dismissal.