Hello everyone! Welcome to another case of the week. For those that missed our announcement last week, Philip and Oscar have launched Yoga HR. You can find the website here.

In our last case of the week we looked at the recent case of Bailey v Stonewall, which can be found here.

This week, we are looking at the case of Carroll-Cliffe v Pembrey and Burry Port Town Council, the Respondent. This case included a costs application.

The Claimant, Mrs. Melanie Carroll-Cliffe, was employed by the Respondent as a Town Clerk from January 2013. Her role involved managing 10 other employees and 17 Councillors. She was informed of the pay band on recruitment and did not negotiate this point.

Around a year into her employment, the Claimant discovered that a colleague was on a higher ‘spine point’ than she was. The Respondent increased the Claimant’s pay. However, the Claimant looked at the pay of other employees of the Respondent and found further anomalies. On raising these concerns to their Head of HR, the Claimant was told to carry out evaluations on an informal basis, which later progressed to a formal review for all members of staff.

The review process took over 2 years. Throughout this period, the Council mishandled the Claimant’s pay evaluation, withheld information relevant to the Claimant’s pay, delayed finalising the Claimant’s job description, and failed to adequately deal with disputes between the Claimant and other members of staff. These factors led to a breach of trust and confidence, prompting the Claimant to resign and file a claim in the Employment Tribunal.

The Claimant initially brought a claim for:

  • Constructive unfair dismissal,
  • Sex discrimination,
  • Wrongful dismissal,
  • Whistleblowing detriment and dismissal, and

Unlawful deductions from wages.

The Tribunal found in favour of the Claimant’s unfair dismissal and wrongful dismissal but dismissed the complaints of whistleblowing and discrimination. The whistleblowing failed as the Tribunal found that the Claimant had not made protected disclosures, the discrimination failed due to the lack of evidence to support that the Respondent’s decisions were motivated by discrimination on the grounds of the Claimant’s sex. The Claimant applied for costs and was successful. The Tribunal awarded £1,000 in costs against the Respondent.

The Claimant, having spent over £55,000 on representation, appealed to the Employment Appeal Tribunal. She argued that an offer for settlement was made prior to her resignation which would have settled the dispute at an early stage.

The EAT dismissed the Claimant’s appeal. As the Tribunal has a broad discretion on the decision on whether to award costs and the amount of costs awarded, the Claimant had failed to show that the Respondent’s defence lacked reasonable prospect of success. The Tribunal’s role is not to award costs punitively.

Takeaway Points

Costs do not follow the event in the Employment Tribunal. Refusing to engage in early settlement or conciliation does not automatically show unreasonable behaviour by the other party. However, failing to engage may allow the other party to produce settlement attempts to support an application for costs following a decision in their favour.

It was not unreasonable for the Respondent to defend the claim and some of their defence succeeded. The fact that parts of the defence failed to succeed did not make their defence unreasonable.

It is always important to always keep legal costs proportionate to the claim’s value and avoid excessive spending in the hope of recovering costs. In this case, the Claimant was awarded slightly over £40,000, excluding amounts recouped by HMRC, leaving her down by around £15,000.

I don’t think being down £15,000 would be most people’s idea of a successful claim!