Litigant who called City firm 'scammers' hit with £4,000 costs

A claimant who sent a ‘barrage of unreasonable correspondence’ to a solicitor as part of his failed employment claim has been ordered to pay £4,000 in adverse costs.

Employment Judge Kelly, sitting in the Birmingham tribunal, said the claimant, named as Mr Doskoi, had pursued a ‘hopeless’ case against international firm Hogan Lovells and had behaved inappropriately during the litigation.

The tribunal heard that Doskoi was engaged by Hogan Lovells to provide services relating to ‘significant legal matters’. He had initially claimed for ordinary unfair dismissal.

That claim was dismissed at a preliminary hearing in July 2021 as Doskoi did not meet the requisite two-year qualifying period. He then pursued a claim for automatic unfair dismissal by reason of a protected disclosure, referencing a disclosure made three months after his contract was terminated.

Kelly said it was clear that the claim for any detriment arising from a protected disclosure must fail, because the detriment (the dismissal) arose long before the disclosure. There was no reasonable prospect of Doskoi’s claim succeeding at a final hearing.

Hogan Lovells then asked the judge to take the rare step of ordering costs against a failed employment claimant. The tribunal heard that Doskoi made ‘numerous attacks’ on the professional integrity of a Hogan Lovells partner and referred to the firm in correspondence as ‘liars and scammers’. He copied other partners at the firm into correspondence.

Doskoi, acting as a litigant in person, submitted a statement running to 78 pages. The judge said most of this was ‘irrelevant’. He continued: ‘The claimant has behaved unreasonably in nature of his communications with the respondent, the unnecessary amount of material put before the tribunal and of course, the pursuit of a hopeless claim which would have been apparent after the hearing [in] July 2021.’

The judge added it was inappropriate to make ‘serious allegations of impropriety against solicitors without a clear and proper basis for doing so’.

Hogan Lovells sought £20,000 in adverse costs, which was reduced to £4,000 based on an acceptance that Doskoi believed he had a genuine claim to start with.