Thread by @tribunaltweets

We expect to be reporting on Natalie Bird vs the Liberal Democrats from the Royal Courts of Justice this morning, for the final time. Her Honour, Judge Evans-Gordon is expected to give her judgment on damages followed by arguments on costs.

We expect to begin at 10 am. Our previous coverage is here:
tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/natalie-bird…

Ms Bird claimed that the Liberal Democrats (both of the United Kingdom and of England) had discriminated against for her gender critical beliefs, including removing her as a Parliamentary candidate.

The Liberal Democrats admitted Ms Bird’s claims just before the trial was due to begin in July 2024. The explanation from LDs was that this was to save time and costs. A subsequent hearing for damages and costs tool place on 16 & 17 December 2024.

We expect judgment first on damages, then costs discussion.
Abbreviations:
NB/C - Natalie Bird, claimant
LD/R - Lib Dems, respondent
EW - Emma Walker, barrister for claimant
EH - Elliot Hammer, solicitor for claimant
NR - Nathan Roberts, Matrix Chambers for the respondent

J - Judge, Her Honour Judge Evans-Gordon
RA - Radical Association
PPC - prospective parliamentary candidate
AHF t-shirt - t-shirt with the dictionary definition of woman
MLF - my learned friend, barristers referring to opposing counsel

GC - gender critical, sex realist
I/x - investigation
disci - disciplinary
Also, counsel also use D for defendants for the Liberal Democrats et al.

The Judge has arrived.
J - These claims concern breach of contract and EA 2010, Bird vs LDs. R'd as D or LDs. NB holds belief that are described as gc and has suffered discrimination for her beliefs. Liability was conceded by Ds.

It is necessary to set out some procedural issues. 1st claim issued in 2021, against LDs they have no legal personality, no particulars of claim. Claim amended to name 2 individuals as representatives of LD UK, LD England. Then a further claim made with no particulars.

Particulars of claim for first claim dated Jan 2022 and second claim 2 weeks later in January 2022. Only one para different between the 2. Para says claims are substantially the same but 2nd claim issued to reserve the position.

Correspondence between C & D counsel, that first claim was emergency issuance to meet time limits, no time for pre-action correspondence to identify actual legal persons.
(Judge is reading from prepared remarks struggling to keep up).

Discussion of legal reasons for claims without particulars and proper identification of respondents. Implied that D expected R to apply for consolidation of claims.

The existence of 2 claims gives rise to first issue; is there 2 claims or actually 1. C says they are substantially the same but actually different and seeks to claim for each one. D says that is double recovery.

Now on to amount claimed; originally £10k per claim. Subsequently increased to £45k per claim. C says claims fall within the lower end of the middle band of the Vento bands for damages. Then later says they are in upper part.

D asserts they are within the lower part of the bands. The matter rested until the acceptance by the D of breach of contract and liability under the EA when the claims were amended to be increased to the £45k as per above.

2 issues arise: can the claims be increased and if not can the claim be amended to increase the amounts. Now turning to the background. It is complex and takes place over a number of years. The lack of a chronology has hampered me in this matter and there

is a lack of clarity and contradictions in claims and in witnesses statements. C has been a member of LDs for some time, has stood as a candidate, was unsuccessful. Then was placed on the list of approved candidates in 2016/2017. She was eligible to be selected as a candidate

for parliament. Also in 2017 C was diagnosed with depression and unable to work, and then assessed as still struggling. She also separated from her partner in 2017 and became embroiled in proceedings in the family court. By 2018, she had been put forward as a PPC several times.

Was unsuccessful. C made her GC views known during this period and complaints were made against her, an IX took place and a disc process took place. All complaints were dismissed. Contd to express her GC views. Was selected as a PPC. Wore an AHF t-shirt to a meeting.

Then was suspended by letter as a member of LDs. Did not see the letter, arrived at the meeting with the local LDs in Wakefield to be informed of her suspension by the local LD chair.
C then submitted her own complaint about abuse she rec'd.

She was told that this was in effect a defence to further complaints about her.
There was a disc hearing that C describes as window dressing and was banned from holding any office in LDs, membership status was unclear. Was apparently reinstated as a member and further

complaints were made, resulted in further complaints in 2020. Another i/x officer was appointed and then dismissed. C was suspended again and could not attend the 2020 party conference. A further report on C's online comments & activity was critical of C and said she brought

the party into disrepute by public disagreement and comments about a vulnerable minority.
I have not seen any of the social media or the full report nor have I seen the LD policies on trans people.
Now on to particulars of discrim.

The Ds have admitted and accepted liability.
It appears that C's membership was restored at some point, but it is unclear when this happened and whether all of the parties records were updated.
I only heard evidence from C. It was clear to me that's C memory of timing and

events is somewhat confused and she has lost track of details because of the passage of time and the number of incidents.
Now turning to the legal questions.
1. Is there one claim or two? In my opinion the answer is there is one claim. One set of facts, one set of events.

She is only entitled to recover once. It was not an abuse of process to have entered the 2nd claim to protect the legal position on recovery and identity of the defendants. EW accepted that if the claims had been consolidated she would not have been able to claim for each.

There is only one substantial claim and one set of damages to be recovered.
2. Can the amount of the claim be increased. Generally understood to mean that the court can increase the amount awarded beyond that claimed. Referred to 3 cases in which this applied.

1st was defamation claim for £10k, relevant claimant was alleged to be a terrorist, judge increased award to £140k. 2nd case was a CoA decision; issue was damages in a personal injury claim, traffic accident, claim was for £10k. Appears to be a whiplash claim.

Relevant claimant sought to recover £500K, including on loss of earning, this was refused by judge on the grounds that it was vague. Deemed to prejudicial to the defendants and trial would have had to start over.
(missed discussion of 3rd case)

J conts - this all means that this rule cannot be used to avoid having properly pleaded a case in the first place.
(didn't miss 3rd case, that was conclusion of 2nd case).
Now 3rd case: case involved a conspiracy between employee and others intending to injure C by stealing

client base for own business. All of the heads of loss were pleaded. J raised issue of relevant rule, (CPR16.7 I think). Court is not restrained in the amount to be awarded especially if initial amount pleaded is an estimate. There is no cap of quantity of damages.

J - there is an immediate difference between the cases. If all matters are pleaded then the amount is not limited; can be increased by the court. In the other case, the loss claimed for had not been pleaded and could not be used to circumvent to the requirement to plead the

case.
An appropriate test for the application of 16.37 - the relevant facts and matters have been pleaded, the increase in amount claims would not change the track of the case and the defendants are not prejudiced by the increased amount.

If the case has been properly pleaded the amount of damages is within the discretion of the courts. In my view, 16.37 is appropriately applied to amounts to be awarded.
But NR says that prejudice has resulted to the Ds because of the 4.5 fold increase. In my opinion

there is no prejudice, this is the risk of litigation, amounts awarded can be increased or decreased. The quantum of increase is substantially less than any of the cases cited.
The D knew in August the additional amount claimed they had the opportunity to withdraw the

admission of liability. They are not at fault for doing so.
We therefore do not need to deal with the claim to amend.
Moving on to quantum of damages. EA includes injury to feelings. There are bands of damages - highest is 15 to 25k, the Vento bands.

The bands applicable to this case are £27-£45 for most serious, (adjusted for inflation) with bands decreasing for mid and less serious. And in exceptional cases the court may award more.

Awards for injuries to feeling are compensatory and should be fair to both parties. Can't be too low - discrim should be seen to be wrong. But can't be too high - not a method to tax the rich. Must be reasonable and comparable to personal injury awards.

Relevant factors: whether discrim included campaign of harassment over a long period. Also considered Ali vs Green Party - relevant factors are discrimination and victimisation. I'm not going to read out each and every allegation. They address events, arise from

NB's gender critical beliefs, the complaints made about her, the i/x, the suspensions of her membership, her removal as a PPC for Wakefield, further set of complaints against, exclusion from the party conference, also concern events in April 2021.

March & April 2021. I have tried to exclude irrelevant matters. There is also a degree of duplication in pleadings. As the breaches have been admitted, NB only needs to prove injury to feelings. The most significant matters are removal as a PPC and banned from holding

office for 10 years. As per Ali - a political party is not required to field candidates that publicly disagree with party policies. This case is somewhat difficult in that D has admitted discrim in her case. The Ds could have quite properly removed her as a PPC because

she publicly disagreed with party policies. However, the process of dismissal, dealing complaints etc have been admitted as discriminatory. Important that discrim panel in 2018 upheld none of the claims. I see no evidence that her public statements or posts were

transphobic. As far as the 2018 i/x and panel are concerned NB does not contend that she experienced any distress. Now considering how to relate the matters admitted by D to injury to C's feelings. Witness statement does not relate pleaded matters admitted to injuries to

feeling by NB. No specific evidence on decision to refer 7 complaints to expedited panel. NB does refer to be treated like the wicked witch and targeted. I see no evidence that the removal of the 2nd investigator caused her any distress. And the delay to appoint another

investigator. No evidence on impact of her exclusion from the LD conference. NB's evidence does not address the March April 2021 panel and impact on her feelings. However, feels the complaint system was weaponised against. And failure to deal with her own complaints

were further evidence. Her witness statement only includes evidence of injury to feelings in a few paragraphs but that it is about the impact on her career.
NR has asserted that there is no direc tevidence of injury to feelings.
However, there seems to be indirect evidence

being in tears on specific occasions, being distressed at serial complaints, suspensions, etc. It is unlikely that such activity would not be distressing for her.
I have carefully considered the evidence of her GP on her workplace protection insurance, this is evidence of

depression in 2017, largely arising from workplace stress and an oblique reference to an investigation that may be the earliest complaint of the LDs. Further report that identifies stress of caring for 2 special needs children.

Considering the evidence, the injury falls into the lower end of the middle bands for personal injury. The acts went on for some time and I accept that the injury to feelings would persist for some time after the last pleaded act of discrimination.

This is less serious than Ali as she is less high profile and there were no public statements about her by party leadership.
However, the acts of discrimination would have been distressing and persisted for some time.
In my opinion an appropriate award is £14k.

This is in recognition of the duration of the acts and that these acts were likely to have exacerbated her depression.
Cross checked awards against personal injury awards: moderate PTSD, or psychological damage awards. It is not persistent.

The award is comparable to that for scarring, any higher award would make it comparable to an award for the loss of hearing or sight - the loss of an eye or the loss of vision. Any award at that level would undermine the public's confidence in awards.

EW referred to some ET cases, one in which an award was £92K, but I have not been able to access or consider the composition of those cases so I have not relied on them.

Does counsel wish to proceed to submissions or do you need some time to discuss?
Counsel has agreed some time would be helpful.
Return at 11:45 am.
Court rises.
End of morning session, part 1.

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