Bell Lax were instructed by an agency social worker on a ‘no win, no fee’ agreement in relation to a claim for negligent misstatement following inaccurate and misleading comments made about him in a reference.
Our client was an agency social worker for various County Councils. When the client’s contract came to an end he sought employment at alternative Councils working in adult social care. However, upon starting work he was informed that his offer of employment had been withdrawn and on a further two occasions whilst he was travelling to interviews he received a call informing him that the interview was cancelled. Our client eventually obtained employment some two months later when the interviewer decided to offer him employment at a lower rate of pay due to the risk involved with his poor reference.
The client obtained a copy of his reference and believed it to be grossly unfair labelling him as satisfactory to poor in all areas. He requested that the reference was revised and whilst the Council refused to apologise they did revise the reference.
Our client was still unhappy with the amended reference and contacted us to bring a claim for the losses he sustained whilst he was unemployed as well as requesting that a more accurate reference is provided to future employers.
The Defendant denied liability throughout the claim, refusing to make any offers of settlement. They stated that the reference was fair and argued that they had a duty to accurately inform future employers of our client’s capabilities.
The matter proceeded to trial where the advocacy was conducted by one of Bell Lax’s solicitor advocates. The Judge found that the reference was misleading and inaccurate and ordered the Defendant to pay damages to reflect our client’s loss of earnings and wasted expenditure.
