Mon 24-Nov-08 01:56 PM by iut044

Hi

Recently, I lost a DLA appeal. The medically qualified tribunal member did not seem to believe the client from the start. My client also felt he was rude to him. It was a borderline case, there was very little evidence either way.

Anyway, after the hearing this panel member came up to me and said don't you just hate it when the client is lying. He also said he felt sorry for me and that it adds more credability to the clients lies when a rep fills in the forms.

I replied that maybe the client was confused (the client has memory problems).

I think I handled the situation badly, I should have said something like 'i did not hear that and we are not gonna have this conversation'.

I do not have any witnesses to this.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

Complain to the Regional Tribunal Judge.

Thanks for your help

If I do complain, what will happen? The tribunal member in question has been doing it a long time and is self respected. I am new to the job and I have upset a few chairs with mistakes.

I would urge caution about complaining. The facts are that you have had a conversation that (I'm assuming) was between yourself and the member in question and no-one else, therefore its your word against his/hers. You have a client whose recall is unreliable (yes, on medical grounds but that isn't an issue). You have an appeal that you have lost (so you could be percieved as having a grudge).

Now, the issue is that I completely understand why you would be extremely annoyed and upset. It impugns your professional integrity, it undermines your dedication to serving your clients and it certainly raises serious questions regards the independence of the member and their own personal prejudices. However, in my opinion and more importantly in my experience, proving such a complaint can be very difficult indeed.

So tread carefully with this. There are official channels of complaint, you will need to be watertight with your approach and you will probably not have any public success. The Chair I complained about was gently nudged towards retirement, whether that was by coincidence or complaint I don't know. What I do know is that it was a pretty drawn-out process and I could use the fact that other people were party to the outrageous comments concerned, both my clients and wing members. Despite this, the decision from the DC was that the Chair denied making such comments and thus, an neutral verdict was reached.

Maybe more importantly, do you feel that your client has reasonable grounds for appealling the decision? If you have an error of law, you could do far more good by concentrating on this and instead learning a lesson from the appeal tribunal proceedings this time around and just swallowing it perhaps? Sticks in the craw I'm sure but your reputation counts for a great deal and what could be perceived as a vexatious complaint may do more bad than good.

Thanks for your help Paul_Treloar_

The conversation was between the tribunal member and myself, I have no witnesses. I do not think that the tribunal member in question really overstepped the line in the hearing itself (although he may have been). I am going to ask for the statement of written reasons. It was only after this conversation that I really started questioning whether this person was biased. My colleauges say they have never had any problems with this panel member.

My inclination was always towards not making a complaint about this issue.

I have certainly learned from this experience. It is important to have professional boundaries and I should not try and be too matey with the tribunal members and vice versa. If this happens again I will just bark "we should not be having this conversation". I should not worry if these people like me or not.