The Legal 500

Work Department

Employment, personal injury.

Position

Over the past 12 months Paul have been instructed in two matters which are presently listed in the Court of Appeal in November 2009. He has appeared for the third respondent in a victimisation claim in the Leeds employment tribunal which was abandoned on day 48 due to the death of one of the tribunal members. He appeared for BT in a five-day hearing in the Sheffield employment tribunal where the Chief executive and Finance Director were contesting their dismissals with a view to launching High Court Proceedings thereafter for £750K each. He is instructed by BT in a TUPE claim which has wide significance across its businesses in terms of how to re-deploy potentially redundant employees. In previous years he has acted regularly for large corporations and public bodies and been reported regularly in the IRLR and ICR reports. He has recently acted in a three day High Court Action on behalf of the Ministry of Justice where declaratory relief was being sought as to whether the Transfer of Undertaking Regulations 2006 applied to a situation which involved 350 employees. He speaks regularly at conferences and seminars including the annual ‘Hot Issues in Employment Law’ Conference hosted by Mickey Rubenstein. He sits as a part-time fee paid employment judge in Birmingham Employment Tribunal. Significant work/case highlights over the past 12 months include: Chief Constable of Lincolnshire Police v Caston; Atkins v Shaw; Strafford v PlusNet plc; Atkins v BT plc; Law Society v Secretary of State for Justice; Office of Legal Complaints. Personal injury: He has practised in the field of personal injury for over 20 years, in that time he has acted in the following high-profile significant cases: Opren, Benzodiazepine, Kegworth Air Carsh, Camelford Water Pollution, Chinook Crash on Mull of Kintyre. He has acted in a number of reported and leading cases in specific areas of the law for example: Mattis v Pollock [2003] 1 WLR 2158 (vicarious liability for deliberate assault). Sowerby v Charlton [2006] 1 WLR 568 (withdrawal pre action admissions). He acted for the claimants in the case of Bici v Ministry of Defence which is now one of the leading case son combat immunity. Over the last 12 months he has acted in a number of cases for service men injured in incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan including the incident involving the Kajaki mine strike in Afghanistan in 2006 and fatal accident claims arising out of the EOD strike on a UK military vessel on the Shatt al Arab Waterway in Iraq in 2006. He is also instructed by 5 widows who lost their husbands in the crash of the RAF Hercules in Iraq in January 2005. He has been instructed in approximately 20 serious spinal injury or traumatic brain injury cases in the last 12 months. Significant work/case highlights over the past 12 months include: Bridges v Keogh; McKinley v Lambe; Barclay v Brougham; Mason v MOD; Puttick v Elias.

Career

Qualified 1981; joined Chambers 1983; QC 2002; appointed fee-paid Employment Tribunal judge 2003. Publications: article on ‘Vicarious Liability’ published in the Journal of Personal Injury Law issue 3, 2009.

Member

Employment Law Bar Association; Personal Injury Bar Association; APIL; Employment Lawyers Association.

Education

University College School; Reading University (LLB).

Leisure

Golf, travelling, reading.

Practice Areas

Employment; Personal injury - either side