K Jeyarasa v Kentucky Fried Chicken (Great Britain) Limited — 2023

The claimant presented claims of protected disclosure detriment and constructive unfair dismissal on 17 November 2021. The tribunal later dealt with a procedural dispute about whether the constructive unfair dismissal complaint had been pleaded under section 103A of the Employment Rights Act 1996, including a strike-out warning, correspondence from Employment Judge Khalil, and a conversion of the listed final hearing into an open preliminary hearing to identify the issues and deal with strike-out and case management.

This judgment determines only the respondent's application for wasted costs against David Benson Solicitors Ltd. Applying the test in Ridehalgh v Horsefield, the tribunal found that the solicitors' failure to reply to two tribunal letters and their late reply to a third was negligent in the non-technical sense, and that the conduct amounted to poor litigation management. However, the application failed on causation because the respondent itself had requested a preliminary hearing to strike out the constructive unfair dismissal claim, so it would have incurred the representative's attendance costs in any event.

The tribunal therefore refused the wasted costs application. It noted that David Benson Solicitors Ltd had not given any further explanation beyond administrative oversight and human error, but the judgment turned on the absence of unnecessary costs caused by the negligence rather than on any award of compensation.