Chris Randall graduated from the University of Lincoln in 2003 with a First Class LLB (hons) law degree. He won a Law Society Scholarship and completed the Legal Practice Course at College of Law in York in 2004. He completed his training contract and qualified at a local firm in 2006. He spent three years at a national firm in Leeds before returning to Lincolnshire where he was Head of a Lincoln firm’s employment department for four years. He graduated from Leicester University with a LLM Masters in the Law of Employment Relations in 2009. His dissertation covered the subject of disability discrimination.
Chris qualified as a solicitor in 2006 and has always specialized exclusively in litigated and contractual Employment and Industrial Relations Law. His broad experience involves advising and representing both employers and employees in the full spectrum of employment claims, including claims for: sex, race, age, whistleblowing, sexual orientation, religious belief and disability discrimination as well as contract disputes and unfair dismissal. Chris conducts his own advocacy and regularly appears before the Employment Tribunals. He has expertise in enforcing restrictive covenants, redundancy programmes, TUPE transfers and managing industrial action. He also advises in relation to corporate transactions, acquisitions, disposals and the preparation of service agreements, settlement agreements, terms and conditions of employment and severance packages.
Chris has particular experience in strategic multi-party litigation. He successfully represented 428 employees before the Employment Tribunal in claims against a bakery for wages collectively valued at over £1million.
Chris recently successfully represented the Claimant in an unfair constructive dismissal case of Mrs Lynn Trapps -v- United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust. Unfair constructive dismissals are very difficult to succeed upon and it is thought that only 5% of cases are successful. The full judgment can be found here.
Chris has much experience of dealing with discrimination cases. He has particular expertise in disability discrimination cases through representing many disabled employees. For example in the case of Egan -v- Mammoet he was successful at the Hull employment tribunal in securing a finding of unlawful disability discrimination for an employer’s failure to implement reasonable adjustments to the workplace.
Chris has a great deal of experience in successfully defending and bringing unfair dismissal cases which now run into hundreds. Chris successfully represented 17 car workers in claims of unfair dismissal and achieved the unusual remedy of reinstatement for 15 workers. He was successful in the case of Harris -v- Cray Valley in the Hull employment tribunal which carefully distinguished a resignation from a dismissal.
Chris has particular interest in the application of the Agency Workers Regulations, having advised a national agency on amending their business practices in order to comply with the Regulations. Chris litigated the first Employment Tribunal decision addressing the lawfulness of the implementation of the “Swedish derogation” in the contracts of seven agency workers concluded with an agency and multi-national petroleum supplier: Bray-v-Monarch Personnel Refuelling (UK) Limited [2013] IDS Brief 972 (ET).
Chris has extensive knowledge of the Working Time Regulations and National Minimum wage. He recently successfully litigated the case of Tomlinson Blake –v- Royal Mencap Society 1800467/2016 where it was decided by the Hull Employment Tribunal that time spent on a sleep-in shift was “time work” and should be included in calculation for pay. The Tribunal’s decision was upheld by the Employment Appeal Tribunal: Royal Mencap Society –v- Tomlinson Blake UK EAT/0290/16 DM, but was successfully appealed by Mencap to the Supreme Court. Chris worked on the case of Bridgeman-v-ABP [2012] IRLR 639 which successfully established the Working Time rights of Harbour Pilots. The EAT referred to the CJEU the question of the proper construction of the derogation provided by Regulation 21 of the WTR and its compliance with EU law. He has a vast knowledge of the calculation of holiday pay from recently litigating hundreds of claims for holiday pay resulting from the Bear Scotland litigation.