Tribunal: Claimant suffered as a result of dismissal
A paralegal at a London law firm who was unfairly dismissed – leaving her dreams of becoming a solicitor in tatters – has been awarded damages of more than £100,000.
An employment tribunal decided last year that Forida Kaiser was dismissed by Khans Solicitors over unpaid wages, subjected to disability discrimination and harassed on the basis of her sex.
The award also included compensation for a failure to make reasonable adjustments, failure to pay holiday pay, breach of contract, and a failure to provide her with written terms and conditions of employment.
The tribunal said Ms Kaiser had suffered “a sense of injury to herself and her sense of wellbeing and suffered from a deterioration in her mental health, as a result of the discrimination and the discriminatory dismissal”.
It awarded her damages of £105,500 and costs of £3,600. These included damages for injury to feelings of £25,000, with Judge Jones in East London saying that, “as a result of the treatment and her experiences at the respondent, she has given up her dream of becoming a solicitor”.
Ms Kaiser had first worked for Khans, then just in Ilford, Essex, in 2013-14, and rejoined in April 2019, when she was aged 43.
The firm agreed to back her bid to qualify as a solicitor but she was to work initially as a paralegal while she sorted out various issues with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
The firm was found to have had constructive knowledge that Ms Kaiser was a disabled person in relation to multiple conditions.
There were instances of direct disability discrimination, such as not providing Ms Kaiser with training on a new case management system – which the firm’s practice manager said was because she was “always off sick” – and not making various reasonable adjustments she had requested, including her desk set-up and allowing her to come in 30 minutes later to allow pain medication to kick in.
Judge Jones noted that, “despite her disabilities and the pain and discomfort that she felt most of the time; the claimant worked hard, did everything she was told to do, went to the office on weekends and worked late into the evenings, hoping that this would all lead to her eventually achieving her goal of becoming a solicitor”.
The original tribunal held that, when Ms Kaiser informed senior partner Muhammad Omar Khan on 1 February 2021 of her recent diagnosis of cervical spondylosis, “this was the final straw for the respondent”.
It went on: “His response was to ask her to come off PAYE and become a self-employed person. The respondent made it clear during a conversation about her health, that it did not want to continue to employ her.”
This was despite the tribunal finding that she was a hard-working and conscientious member of staff who had brought in clients on numerous occasions as well.
She was made redundant the following day even though there had been no sign up to that point that redundancies were being contemplated. Ms Kaiser said she was the only member of staff released.
In the latest ruling, Judge Jones said that, “in contrast to how she felt when she first began working for the respondent, she does not believe that she will qualify now, although we hope that she will, after sufficient time is passed”.
Although Ms Kaiser agreed to be paid the national minimum wage, Khans “frequently” either did not pay her at all or paid her less.
She subsequently worked briefly for another law firm but had to stop, with the tribunal saying “the trauma from working with the respondent caused her to lose” the job.
She continues to earn commission from a third practice for referring work to them and the tribunal was satisfied that she had mitigated her losses.
Judge Jones included an award of aggravated damages of £5,000, given that “the discriminator is a firm of solicitors. This is a business that represents and advises members of the public on employment law issues”. All of Ms Kaiser’s complaints were “treated in a trivial way”.
The costs award was for dealing with the firm’s applications to strike out her claim “where the allegations were clear and [the firm] knew that at least the money claims and the dismissal complaint had some prospects of success”.
The partner running the case was an employment lawyer and so the firm had conducted its defence “unreasonably by causing the claimant to worry about her case being struck out and to have to incur expenses to ensure that did not happen”.
Auw didums, hurt feelings….