Christopher Taft

Chris undertook his pupillage at St. James's and became a member of Chambers in 1997. In the first few years of practice Chris experienced a broad range of civil litigation but he now specialises in personal injury and employment matters. He has appeared in a variety of courts and tribunals up to and including the Employment Appeal Tribunal and the Court of Appeal.

Chris's personal injury practice encompasses all aspects of this area of work, including road traffic, employers' liability (including stress at work), public liability and fatal accidents. He has recently been involved, with and without the benefit of leading counsel, in a number of high value cases. He acts for both claimants and defendants and he has extensive experience of CICB and CICA appeal hearings, receiving regular instructions from, amongst others, the Police Federation.

His employment practice is wide-ranging, encompassing unfair and wrongful dismissal, unlawful discrimination in all its forms, restrictive covenants and all other aspects of industrial relations. He receives regular instructions from both applicants (individuals and groups) and employers, including two large public authorities. He has extensive experience in dealing with multi-day, document-heavy final hearings in the employment tribunal.

Recent notable cases:

Laing v. Manchester City Council
[2006] ICR 1519, [2006] IRLR 748, [2005] All ER (D) 60

Thompson v. Jones [2008]
(Appeal concerning the appropriate uplift under CPR 45.15 where a defendant fails to attend a final hearing)

Joshi v. Manchester City Council [2008] All ER (D) 246
(Correct interpretation of the time limit provisions in the Employment Act 2002 (Dispute Resolution) Regulations 2004. EAT accepting that its earlier decision in Singh (t/a Rainbow International) v. Taylor [2005] was wrongly decided.)