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Sydney solicitor’s ‘scandalous’ claims against former firm thrown out
A solicitor who made “scandalous allegations” about his former firm has lost a bid to reignite his unfair dismissal fight.
Naomi Neilson
The Federal Court has dismissed an appeal brought by Prateek Patial on the grounds that Justice Scott Goodman was incorrect to strike out and remove a statement of claim alleging that the Fair Work Commission made a “significant miscarriage of justice”.
Mr Patial had alleged Kailash Lawyers and principal Amit Pall forced him into a “sham” contract, which set out that the two would not be in an employee-employer contract and would instead work together under a supervised training agreement with certain benefits.
The Fair Work Commission not only found that Mr Patial was “not a person who otherwise would be susceptible to conduct in the nature of coercion duress or similar” but that he was also the one who had proposed the agreement to Mr Pall in the first place.
Further, the commissioner heard Mr Pall offered him employment a year into the agreement, but Mr Patial had turned this down.
Even accepting that Mr Patial had only recently joined the legal profession, the commissioner added that she does “not accept the appellant somehow naively or unwittingly was coerced into a non-employment relationship arrangements … that he, I reiterate, unilaterally and personally had presented to Mr Pall”.
Following a weekly meeting in August 2020, Mr Patial and Mr Pall both called police to intervene in a dispute as to whether Mr Patial should be removed from the office. By email two days later, Mr Pall ended the contractual relationship between the two parties.
The commissioner dismissed the application due to there not being an existing employment relationship between the parties but added that even if there had been, “his dismissal had not been unfair”.
Mr Patial alleged Justice Goodman had erred in his reasoning for dismissing the statement of claim.
In hearing the appeal of Justice Goodman’s decision, Justices Steven Rares, Darren Jackson and Allaster Halley found that allowing it to continue would “expose Kailash Lawyers to unreasonable and vexation and expense”.
“He has repeatedly made scandalous allegations … without any coherent or proper basis,” the court determined.
Naomi Neilson
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
You can email Naomi at:
