A man who has made more than 40 employment claims against a variety of companies has been banned from using the employment tribunals service.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal gave D Taheri a restriction of proceedings order of indefinite notice, prohibiting him from making claims against employers without the permission of the EAT or a high court judge.
According to the EAT, Taheri repeatedly applied for jobs then brought a claim against the employer if his applications were rejected, and seeking thousands of pounds in damages. He had, it said, “weaponised” the tribunal system.
Most of his 43 claims, made between 2012 and 2020, were struck out after either having no reasonable project of success or after being withdrawn by Taheri. All of the claims failed. In some cases, however, small out-of-court settlements were made by companies to Taheri.
Many of the claims were brought on the grounds of race, age and disability discrimination. Taheri described himself as being of Iranian ethnicity and said he had prostate cancer.
His first claim, for £1,000 was made on 18 October 2012, and was brought against Orchid Pubs and Dining Ltd after Taheri was rejected from a chef role. Taheri was eventually found guilty of harassment against a member of staff at Orchid and was handed a two-year restraining order against the employer.
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Taheri refrained from pursuing other claims for a number of years after the president of the employment tribunal wrote to the Treasury solicitor warning of Taheri’s behaviour.
But from January 2018, Taheri lodged a series of claims against 17 firms, none of which came to fruition.
In one of them, he claimed £50,000 for age discrimination from Virgin Media after being turned down for a sales adviser role. After his application was rejected he wrote “this is is disability discrimination”, copying in “BBC Watchdog and Acas”. The claim was struck out after he failed to pay a £750 deposit.
Taheri told the EAT that since February 2021, he had “only” three claims outstanding; however the EAT responded that three claims was “not an insignificant number”.
Mrs Justice Eady ruled that a restriction order was “necessary for public protection against abusive claims and to ensure that the administration of justice is not impaired by the persistent pursuit of unmeritorious proceedings”.
“In not one of over 40 claims brought before the employment tribunal has [Taheri] gone on to achieve a successful outcome after a full merits hearing,” the judge said.
She noted that some of Taheri’s claims had been settled, but added that “even if payments were made in [Taheri’s] favour, that would not necessarily mean that the claim was not vexatious”.
Eady found Taheri has “habitually and persistently, and without any reasonable grounds, pursued proceedings that have little or no basis in law, which subject would-be employers to inconvenience, harassment and expense out of all proportion to any gain likely to accrue to the respondent”.
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