MoJ gears up for surge in employment tribunal cases

Barrister Daniel Barnett’s latest news wire asserts that the Ministry of Justice is looking to appoint 54 employment judges across England & Wales. 

The new appointments will be announced in January 2019, although they are unlikely to take up work immediately as there will need to be training and induction first.
DB goes on to comment that he has been told, informally, that the Ministry of Justice intends to launch a second recruitment round for fee-paid employment judges, once this recruitment round is complete.

https://www.judicialappointments.gov.uk/vacancies/122

Against a back ground of cuts elsewhere within the Justice system, the recruitment campaign for Employment judges clearly corroborates the increase in claims volumes that we have seen since employment tribunal fees were abolished. 

By way of a reminder, the number of single claims increased over the same quarter for the previous year by 64%  for Q3 and 90% for Q4 (according to HM Court & Tribunal Services statistics). The next statistical release for Q1 2018 is expected in June so watch this space for further comment.

ARAG Legal Services website - Free Business Bulletins PART 2

I hope your clients have rushed to register to use  > araglegal.co.uk , following my earlier blog, in which I provided information about the General Data Protection Regulations, extracted from the Business bulletin which is produced by the team behind our Business Legal Services website.

I explained that in addition to maintaining the law guide and creating on-line legal documents for clients to customise to their own circumstances, our content team also publish topical Business Bulletins. Once registered with the site, customers can opt- in to receive these.

 Here’s a second chance for you to encourage clients to register. Below is an extract from a recent bulletin on employment cases. Take a minute to send this to your clients with a reminder of their voucher code and encourage them to register on the Business Legal Services website to receive information like this in the future.

Employment case law update

Disability legislation applies if impairment could lead to disability, say EAT

The Equality Act makes it unlawful to treat someone with a disability less favourably than others in

similar circumstances.

What if they have a minor impairment that doesn't affect their day-to-day activities, but you're

worried it might become worse and then amount to a disability and affect their ability to do the job?

Is it safer to dismiss them at this stage so you can avoid having to grapple with the Equality Act?

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) recently considered this issue. A police officer had

applied to transfer to another role. She had a hearing impairment that did not affect daily activities.

The constabulary was worried that it might become worse and therefore rejected her application.

The EAT decided that this was unlawful discrimination. How did they reach that conclusion?

Progressive conditions

Disability is defined as an impairment that has a substantial and long-term effect on the ability to

carry out daily activities. However, the Equality Act explicitly says that if a condition doesn't yet

have a substantial effect but is likely to get worse so that it does, that's considered to be a disability.

Perceived disability discrimination

The Equality Act also protects people who are perceived to have the quality in question. For

example, it would be sexual orientation discrimination to treat someone less favourably than others

because you incorrectly think they are homosexual.

The reasoning in this recent case

This decision was based on these two points. The employer perceived the employee to have a

progressive condition, and treated her less favourably for that reason.

We sometimes see this in relation to stress: an employer dismisses before the condition becomes

depression. This decision means that's unlawful.

What this means for you

We understand that the constabulary's appealing to the Court of Appeal, so the law on this may be

refined. However, for now you should assume this is the law. In other words, you can't avoid the

Equality Act by acting quickly, before a condition gets worse and amounts to a disability.

How we can help

If you think that an employee or an applicant may have a disability, you're expected to make

reasonable adjustments so that they can continue in their position. Our Employee Handbook and in

particular its Equal opportunities policy cover reasonable adjustments.

This Blog features legal content from Epoq Legal services, creators of ARAG Business Legal Services. 

 

Here today, gone tomorrow

Following last month’s news of the collapse of CBL Insurance and the subsequent failure of Denmark’s Alpha Insurance, Head of Sales Andy Talbot, considers where the next legal expenses underwriting failure may occur.

In 2016, it was AU Insurance Services. Last summer, it was Elite Insurance Company. Already in 2018, New Zealand’s CBL Insurance Limited has collapsed leaving Alpha Insurance A/S in solvent liquidation and run-off.

Often, it seems, these failures impacting the legal expenses sector get associated with the ATE market, somehow remote from the majority of brokers. But most legal expenses underwriters, wherever they are based, will have feet in both ATE and BTE camps.

Alpha is a case in point, having underwritten numerous motor legal protection and other policies for brokers around the country, as well as some ATE business.

The precise causes and circumstances of these failures (and the several others that have occurred in between them) may be very different, but they have all left brokers, other intermediaries and their clients in the lurch.

In most cases, clients are unlikely to be impacted if a change of underwriter is forced on their insurance provider. Some consolation for brokers who have to go back to the market, find a new underwriter or product and undertake all the subsequent work that such failures inevitably trigger. 

What is troubling is the frequency with which such failures seem to be occurring.

The legal expenses insurance market has not been an easy one in recent years. Increased regulation, LASPO, numerous other legislative changes and even the succession of IPT rate increases have all put pressure on smaller LEI providers.

Some underwriters have also been more vulnerable to the impact of continued uncertainty over EEA passporting rules, resulting from the Brexit vote, and there are likely to be more legislative changes to come. Proposals to change the way “whiplash” claims are handled and raise small claims court limits could seriously undermine the business models of some LEI providers and trouble their underwriters.

Brokers have good reason to be cautious. Alpha Insurance is only the latest underwriter to exit the legal expenses market. It is highly unlikely to be the last.

How and when the next legal expenses underwriter will leave the market is inevitably hard to predict, but brokers owe it to themselves at least, to minimise the risk of finding themselves in a similar situation over the coming months.

Very few law firms will have the knowledge of insurance markets that most brokers do, so it may be hard for them to understand and calculate the risk. Brokers, on the other hand, should be much more adept at asking the right sort of questions, not just of their immediate provider but the ultimate underwriter too.

Who is this policy underwritten by? Where are they based? Who regulates them and what sort of scrutiny do they come under? Are they independently rated by a credible agency? How much experience do they have writing this sort of business?

Thankfully, it seems that Alpha’s departure and run-off will, like Elite’s before it, be orderly. The underwriter appears solvent and seems capable of meeting its obligations.

Next time, we may not be so lucky.

The RAG - issue 16 - November 2017

It's this time of year again - when our bi-annual news bulletin is out !

You can flick through its pages and zoom in to read all our articles in our interactive flick book below.

 Also, you can download it here : The RAG, Issue 16 - November 2017