Claimant v Walsall Housing Group Ltd — 2023

The respondent applied under Rules 80 to 84 of the Employment Tribunals Rules 2013 for a wasted costs order against Simpsons Solicitors in connection with claims brought by 169 purported claimants under section 145B(5) of TULR(C)A. The dispute centred on whether Simpsons had express authority from each individual claimant to present the proceedings. The respondent queried authority shortly after the claim was served, but no satisfactory confirmation was provided for many months.

The tribunal found that Simpsons had acted on instructions from the GMB Union, but that GMB had not obtained express instructions from all, or possibly any, of the individual claimants. Ms Jones's witness statement described an opt-out exercise sent to the whole membership and confirmed that individual instructions had not been received. The tribunal said that Simpson's response to the authority query was inadequate, and that presenting the claims without proper instructions fell far below the standard of competence reasonably to be expected of ordinary members of the solicitors profession.

Applying the principles in Ridehalgh v Horsefield and Medcalf v Mardell, the tribunal held that the threshold for a wasted costs order was met. It also concluded that this was a proper case to make the order because of the fundamental failing, the unsatisfactory response when the point was raised, and the work required of the respondent's solicitors to regularise the position. The order covered the reasonable costs of checking authority, repeated or wasted preparation for the 14 April 2023 preliminary hearing, the costs of the wasted costs application, and the cost of assessing the amount payable, but the judgment did not quantify the amount and instead listed a further hearing for that purpose.