Approx timeline and legal process of my HMRC case

[natalyad]

8th November 2012 - My first contact with solicitors

I emailed my recommended firm's info@ address with a brief outline of my discrmination case and my disability/impairment info and how they were linked. I asked if they could respond to me by email or IM and let me know if my case might be worth pursuing.

13th November 2012 - First reply from solicitor

A solicitor from the firm replied within 5 days asking me for:

1) a list of dates and times of each incident of the kind of issues I was raising. In my case it was instances that I had disclosed disability and requested adjustments.

2) Any evidence I had in form of letters, emails, call transcripts.

3) My full name, DOB, address, NI number.

The solicitor said she would then review what I sent with her supervisor and get back to me as quickly as possible.

15th November 2012 - Initial info I sent to solicitors

I sent two emails with scans of letters I had sent to and received from HMRC + printouts of textphone calls I had with them.

I also let the solicitor know I had *extensive* medical evidence of my impairments.

17th December 2012 - First wadge of papers from solicitor

The solicitor sent through an information pack and some letters about my case in the post. These contained information about how solicitors worked, their set-up, funding possibilities and so on.

The info asked me to check if I had legal case funding via house, union or professional body insurances which I didn't have.

The option then was to consider a Conditional Fee Agreement which is lawyer speak for "no win, no fee".

The paperwork took me a few hours to read through carefully and understand. I asked my partner to read it and check my understanding as well. I was able to work out what I still had questions about. This was a bit harder than for many people because of my language impairment issues.

If you are not sure of your English skills you can ask a solicitor to provide you with face to face advice with appropriate communication support such as an RSLI BSL/English interpreter, lipspeaker or STTR operator so you can ask questions.

I sent proof of ID and address as well as a signed copy of one of the letters in the info pack to my solicitor by post. I think this was giving them permission to act as my solicitors.

I also emailed a few questions to the solicitor about the paperwork, funding and implications to me.

21st December 2012 - Response to questions and next contacts

I received a response to questions within a few days. I had a change of solicitor due to one going on maternity leave which was very clearly explained by a postal letter. The new solicitor emailed me to introduce herself and explain her role as she was a trainee acting under supervision/instruction from one of the partners in the firm which I understand is fairly standard. I was happy with this.

22nd January 2013 - Change of staff & handful of emails

For some reason an email from my original solicitor didn't get through to me so I hadn't replied. I got the missing email re-sent to me.

There was a bit of confusion at my end where I think the original solicitor was expecting me to do something and I hadn't realised. I explained to new solicitor that I sometimes don't realise something is inferred and if there is a specific action I need to take it would be helpful if they could be very direct about this so I won't misunderstand. The new solicitor has been great about this ever since.

I was asked to confirm I wished to go ahead with proceedings against HMRC.

13th March 2013 - Check on progress

I hadn't heard anything for a while so I emailed my solicitor to ask what was happening at their end and update with some new HMRC info.

Solicitor replied to say some of the questions I had weren't directly relevant and gave me a name of someone who might be able to advise me on those. Conditional Fee Agreement papers were being sent out in the post and I needed to sign and return those and let them know if they had any questions.

Solicitor also outlined the next steps:
* Draft and send a letter of claim to my opponent.
* Drafting of 'witness' statement.

These would go into detail about my disability, day to day effects and the specific problems I was having with HMRC in relation to their refusal to make 'reasonable adjustments' and give me access.

Solicitor proposed drafting from existing material I had sent.

1st April 2013 - When discrimination occurred and re-triggering the clock

I confirmed I'd returned the CFA paperwork and the 2 week delay was at my end.

Solicitor and I had a discussion by email about when discrimination had last occurred as there's a 6 month time out on it. As most of my incidents were older than that I was advised to send another letter to HMRC asking for the same things again and see what the response was.

I wrote two letters to HMRC. One requesting contact/support again to the last address I had (as finding addresses is impossible now) and another complaining about the textphone service issues I'd experienced since Nov 2012 to their official complaints at my local HMRC office. I was asked to let solicitor know which addresses I'd sent those to. I sent them both by first class recorded delivery.

28th May 2013 - Solicitor checked in

Solicitor emailed to ask if I had received a reply from HMRC. I explained I hadn't and couldn't type well enough to use textphone and asked for advice on what next - another letter to chase? Solicitor agreed this was a good idea.

I drafted a letter complaining about the lack of response from HMRC and got my solicitor to check it before sending and asked her advice on including the originals and posting recorded/special delivery. I did include original letters with COPY watermarked into them and sent them recorded delivery

30th May 2013 - HMRC reply to me

I emailed solicitor to let her know HMRC replied to me in a letter dated 23rd May. As I hadn't managed to send my "chasing" letter I was going to amend it to just chase the other outstanding letter.

I then outlined my concerns with HMRC's reply which I had scanned and attached to the email. I said I felt the response was discriminatory in itself and outlined why it was problematic for me. I also asked whether it was grounds for complaint under various aspects of the Equality Act.

I expected to wait a little longer than the usual very prompt replies I got to emails as the solicitor would have to check with the partner and so on.

3rd June 2013 - Solicitors reply to confirm proceedings can take place

I received an email reply from solicitor telling me that she and the partner felt able to proceed against HMRC,

Solicitor resent me everything I had sent the firm already and asked me to send them anything else that might relate to my case. She outlined how she would draft her "statement of case".

She also outlined the next steps which would be:
1) Completing the letter of claim
2) Seeking advice from a barrister
3) Request that I signed some more paperwork which would allow the firm to ask my GP to confirm that I am disabled under the Equality Act.

I replied with a few questions about
* the "limitation clock" aka time from discriminatory incident until we run out of time to take action,
* asking if my doing a Data Protection Act Subject Access Request to HMRC was worth it
* whether existing medical evidence would suffice
* Whether there would be a charge for asking for GP letters

She replied really quickly with clarifications, agreeing that a DPA SAR was worth having as it might be a more reliable way of extracting info from HMRC than other lawyer ways, explaining limitations and that the GP costs would be covered.

5th June 2013 - All the evidence I had

I sat down and went through my piles of paper and scans of evidence and drew up a spreadsheet of everything with columns for date, sent, received, type, comment and relabelled all the files I had electronically or scanned to date in a sensible format of YYY-MM-DD date + SENDER to RECIPIENT + brief info about content.

I emailed everything I had in 3 batches with an explanation that I was going to run some more through the scanner at work which would allow me to SCAN, turn to PDF and OCR them all (which would make them searchable).

I also confirmed I had DPA SARed HMRC, sent my complaint about non response to complaints recorded delivery, FOIed them over call handling in 2007-8 and outlined what I was hoping for as an outcome of proceedings so we were all aware of expectations from the start.

16th June 2013 - Checking up on paperwork

I emailed to check if the solicitor had sent me the GP letter paperwork as I hadn't received it and a few more questions about documents which were somewhat "identikit" and might not be useful.

I got a reply a few days later saying paperwork had been sent and sending me electronic copies but holding off for now as the evidence I had was sufficient and she would look into everything as she'd been out of the office a lot for a few weeks.

3rd July 2013 - Draft letter of claim #1

Solicitor sent me the draft letter of claim with another letter in it explaining about how long the opponent would have to answer - and that we'd probably have to allow some extra leeway under the civil procedure rules in terms of timings.

I sent back a word document of corrections to the draft, mostly about technical deaf telephony issues which I know are not easy to explain. I also asked if things which needed signing could be scanned and emailed instead of posted which is easier for me.

8th July 2013 - Finalising letter of claim

We had another instance of emails going missing to my Gmail, so the original needed to be re-sent. I went through the updated draft with my notes and was pleased with the way these had been integrated and confirmed I was happy for the amended letter of claim to be sent to HMRC.

23rd July 2013 - query from barrister

I received an email from solicitor relaying a question from the barrister they'd instructed on my case. I was able to reply quickly and confirm that I'd be sending info as I'd received the DPA SAR info.

30th July 2013 - DPA SAR output

I wasn't able to scan the info as quickly as I'd hoped so it was a week before I could email excerpts from the DPA SAR from HMRC. Most of it was screenshots of their system files on me including comments from advisers implying they'd met their responsibilities and issues I had with phone access were my problem not HMRC's. Lots of HMRC references to "signers" when I'd absolutely never asked for a signer. I also sent copies of complaints I'd sent to the EHRC which I assume I must've sent to HMRC at some point...

I also sent the solicitor a link to some case law (albeit for employment) where someone was found against for refusing to provide face to face support to a deaf person in case it was helpful.

2nd August 2013 - Initial reply from HMRC

Solicitor emailed me a copy of a brief letter from HMRC acknowledging receipt of pre-action protocol letter and asking for a bit longer to reply saying they would endeavour to reply by 16th August.

I replied to thank solicitor and confirm that I'd received through the post the court papers, barrister's advice and particulars of claim and would send corrections/amendments by email and asking if I should sign the incorrect original or wait for an updated one to sign. She replied to say that she would make changes and send me new document to sign.

I was then able to send through a word document correcting some errors in the particulars and further clarification of terminology and clarity about deaf telephony.

The barrister's advice provided me with considerable amusement as it was sarcastic and rude in lawyerese and surprisingly comprehensible.

5th August 2013 - Finalising the particulars of claim

Solicitor sent me an updated draft plus some clarity on why she hadn't implemented some of my wording/suggestions and why from a legal perspective in terms of how it would be perceived which was helpful.

I amended the document directly in a different colour of text to edit a few small amendments and delete one inaccurate statement. I emailed the amendments to solicitor and printed+posted the version I'd done and posted that to her. I also thanked her for her explanations and clarifications.

10th August 2013 - Letters received in post from HMRC - shoddy response

I received a letter from HMRC which was very confusingly worded and appeared to be saying they would refund any WTC overpayment they'd taken from me and write off the remainder + copies of two previous letters they'd sent to me + offering me £25 compensation but saying they wouldn't pay my lawyer fees and didn't think they were discriminating against me. There was also a copy of a letter allegedly sent to my solicitors.

I asked my partner to read them for me to check my understanding.

16th August 2013 - Email to solicitor about HMRC letters

Due to being away it was a few days till I could scan the HMRC letters and send them to my solicitor with some comments.

I outlined my issues with each letter and said I felt that £25 and not paying my legal fees was unacceptable.

The moment HMRC forced me into legal advice was the point at which they lost the right to just write off the original money and walk away without dealing with the rest of the discrimination.

19th August 2013 - Reply from HMRC to me instead of my solicitor

Solicitor replied to say she had not yet received their copy of the letter from HMRC to them about me and that she had chased HMRC on 15th August. She also said that HMRC should not have sent the letters to me as that was a breach of the Solicitors Code of Conduct as they were aware Solicitors had been instructed to act for me.

Solicitor said she would contact them about this issue and advised me not to respond and let the solicitors do everything if I was happy to do so.

I replied to confirm I was happy for them to act and that I had not realised about the inappropriate contact but wasn't surprised.

20th August 2013 - Official response from HMRC via solicitor this time

Solicitor sent me a scan of the official HMRC response asking for me to reply to her letting them know my thoughts. She also said their two main concerns were HMRC's dismissal of my claim and their reliance on me using a third party to communicate via telephone which my solicitor felt was a misinterpretation of the Equality Act as it is the organisation's responsibility/duty to make reasonable adjustments.

She also said they would send it to my barrister for his comments.

I replied to confirm my unhappiness on the same points as the solicitor, reiterating that a third party is not an option for me and that I was happy for solicitor to pursue any viable complaints of disability discrimination against HMRC.

Solicitor replied to say she would draft a further response to HMRC and send me a copy when it was completed.

21st August 2013 - Second round of lawyerly letters to HMRC

Solicitor sent a copy of the response to HMRC which outlined our concerns and ended with "unless you are willing to address the issues our client has raised we will have no option but to proceed to issue - please confirm you are authorised to accept service of proceedings" which is basically lawyerese for "reply properly or we'll go to court, are you authorised to receive served papers for HMRC".

I replied thanking solicitor and asking how long we would allow HMRC to have to reply to this next round. She replied 2 days later to say we were ready to issue court proceedings if needed however we needed to show we'd made all reasonable steps to keep this out of court so would give them 14 days they would chase and keep me updated.

22nd August 2013 - Second interim response from HMRC - they got a new lawyer in

Solicitor emailed me to say that HMRC had sent an email from a new lawyer at their end handling the case. He claimed he was still awaiting new information and would for the time being assume my claim of being disabled was legit but may well ask for proof. Solicitor sent me the GP form and said they didn't have a signed copy on file (evidently not remembering she'd put that on hold which is understandable, I'm one of many clients)

HMRC's new lawyer asked if they could dismiss some of the requests and asked for 28 more days to deal with things and would let us know if he couldn't.

I replied with several comments and queries as I felt HMRC had been "playing games" in the hope of fobbing us off and said I didn't feel inclined to give them even more time but would do so if advised to by Solicitor. I agreed that one of the requests could be removed as it was now resolved but that the second one was still a systemic issue which I wanted HMRC to answer.

I asked if I could sign, print and scan in my GP authority and email them back to her which she confirmed was fine the next day along with an enumerated summary of what she wanted to offer HMRC in the next correspondence in the form of an initial settlement offer.

I sent my comments on the settlement points along with my signed GP authority.

5th September 2013 - Solicitor responds to some of my queries about settlement items including confidentiality

I was asking if HMRC would admit they had discriminated against me in the terms of the Equality Act e.g direct/indirect discrimination etc. Solicitor explained to me it wuld be very unlikely HMRC would ever admit to this and while only a judge had jurisdiction to declare discrimation it wouldn't be deemed reasonable for us to hold out to court for this.

She also confirmed written apology was unlikely and very rare but had asked for this.

I had asked about confidentiality and she said it was often insisted on as a condition of settlement and advised we considered it if and only it came up.
I was very unwilling to agree to confidentiality on principle as confidential settlements are one of the reasons there's limited information out there about other "successful" discrimination cases.

9th September 2013 - GP letter confirming I'm disabled

I'm officially legally disabled!

My usual lovely GP did this really quickly and it was accurate enough for this purpose although I'd dispute some terminology used.

25th September 2013 - HMRC respond to settlement

Solicitor sent me an email saying HMRC had responded to our offer to settle with what they would agree to namely:
1) No official admission that they breached the Equality Act but several instances of apology.
2) Paying my lawyer's fees.
3) Financial compensation
4) An apology

The solicitor and partner of the firm felt we wouldn't get more from court and that the settlement was reasonavble and that I should accept it.

I was initially very angry about HMRC's response because it was dismissive, inaccurate and still repeated a lot of problematic things like "Natalya could use a third party" and claims that some of the things we'd suggested to improve things within HMRC for deaf/disabled people were impossible/unreasonable.

I replied to solicitor to ask her if there was anything between accepting settlement and court as there were a number of inaccuracies in HMRC's reply and I was worried if I didn't challenge them they became "legal fact". I also asked about confidentiality.

Solicitor was really good at this point, she explained everything really clearly about inaccuracies and legal implications and perceptions of things. She recommended sending a response with inaccuracies highlighted and a "if you screw up again we'll re-sue you!" ending to HMRC but accepting the settlement. She also confirmed that if HMRC hadn't mentioned confidentiality at this point they couldn't add it after we accepted settlement.

I sent through some notes of inaccuracies in the letter for possible inclusion in the Solicitor's response.

I had done some research into "DDA" and Disability Discrimination compensation payouts and HMRC's offer was higher than the few service provider equivalent cases which are published by a significant margin.

27th September 2013 - Acceptance of settlement letter to HMRC

Solicitor sent me her response she'd sent to HMRC accepting settlement but pointing out inaccuracies. This was excellent as it was coherent and succinct which was more than my comments. I thanked her for all her work on my case and passed on my congratulations about another case of theirs that they had won which had hit the media.

I was also asked if I would be willing to be on my solicitor's website as a case study which I agreed to.

4th October 2013 - HMRC's final letter

Solicitor sent me a copy of HMRC's final letter to me confirming that they would sent me a cheque; noting the contents of the letter but basically claiming that they didn't agree with them and making more excuses...

Solicitor advised that we leave it at this because HMRC are now very aware that if they discriminate against me in future that I won't hesitate to instruct solicitors. While HMRC said they would send the cheque to me, solicitor felt they would send it to her for me.

I asked some questions about the changes to funding for legal cases which solicitor confirmed could be difficult due to changes that a campaign is being mobilised to challenge.

8th October 2013 - HMRC sends me a cheque!

HMRC sent me a cheque which my partner opened and cashed ASAP just cos we're a tad paranoid about HMRC. I have emailed my solicitor to let her know and check whether there is anything else I have to do...

The end.....

Comments

Not a lawyer but..

[lovingboth]

CFA is a bit more complicated than 'no win, no fee' from the lawyers' point of view: it means that if they win, they can claim much greater costs in the event that they win. It's a bet on their part, which is why they want to see they have a good chance of winning.

I can't remember what the current maximum 'uplift' is, but if you can double your costs and you only take on cases you are certain to win, you make double the money. If you take on 50-50 cases, you make the same. Below that, you lose money.

Did you need to take out 'After The Event' ('ATE') insurance to cover legal costs if they were awarded against you?

The other aspect that I would hope was explained to you is that turning down an offer to settle has big implications in terms of costs if you go to court and don't get more than that.