SDT: Clear breach of trust
A partner who misled his clients for two years about the status of their claim – leading them to believe it had been issued when it had not been – has been struck off.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) rejected Benjamin David Tisdall’s explanation that it was simply a case of poor communication on his part.
At the time – 2018 to 2020 – Mr Tisdall was a partner at Fursdon Knapper in Plymouth, which subsequently merged into Curtis Whiteford Crocker. Mr Tisdall, who qualified in 2013, now operates as a mediator in Torquay.
He represented ‘Dr A and Mrs A’ in their claim against a property developer and it was alleged that he informed by them by email on 2 May 2018 that he had lodged their claim in court, which he knew was untrue.
The clients had been very clear that they wanted the claim lodged urgently, the SDT noted. In reply to their chasing emails, he wrote: “Your claim has been done on Monday, as I said it would be.”
Mr Tisdall told the tribunal that he meant by this that he had commenced work on the claim with a view to issuing it and it was largely complete. It was a case of his “poor communication”, rather than a conscious attempt to mislead the clients.
But the SDT held that, on the balance of probabilities, “these words could have no meaning other than informing them that the claim had been lodged in court”.
Secondly, it was alleged that, on 11 February 2019, Mr Tisdall informed his clients that he had resubmitted the claim, which also was untrue. The email said: “I am resubmitted [sic] your paperwork, and sent this by DX, last week – which is secure post service through solicitors and the court.”
Mr Tisdall said he had told a member of staff to submit the claim back in May and believed it had been. But, once he realised that it had not been dealt with, he would have asked a colleague to print it off and put it in the post to the court.
However, again the SDT did not accept this explanation. It considered that he meant to indicate that he had personally resubmitted the claim. This was misleading in two respects, it said, in that a claim had not been previously submitted and he never personally resubmitted the claim or instructed any other member of the firm to do so on his behalf.
Lastly, it was alleged that, between May 2018 and April 2020, Mr Tisdall created a misleading impression that he had filed the proceedings when he had not done so, failing to correct his clients’ understanding. The SDT agreed, and said this conduct was dishonest.
It did not accept his statement that he had only realised in January 2020 that the claim had not been submitted to the court.
Mr Tisdall made the broader point that he was away from the office 80% of the time dealing with court commitments and was trying to cope with the pressures of a very busy work schedule.
The SDT recorded that he said he had “difficulties in managing work to be completed within the office and relied heavily on his team to provide him with assistance and support”.
The tribunal found there had been “a clear breach of trust”. It went on: “Although the initial action of informing Dr A and Mrs A that he had filed the claim may not have been deliberately planned, the subsequent action in consistently maintaining that proceedings were issued involved some degree of planning.”
The misconduct had a “considerable impact” on the clients. “From the number of the emails they had sent and the tone of the emails, they experienced a high degree of stress as a result of the actions of [Mr Tisdall].”
The impact extended to junior staff at the firm, “who were repeatedly contacted by the clients wanting to obtain updates” from Mr Tisdall through them.
The SDT took into account his “considerable workload and the pressures of work that he experienced during the period” and the remorse he expressed at the poor level of service that he had provided to the clients.
But it afforded these mitigating factors “limited weight” and found no exceptional circumstances to justify diverging from the usual sanction of strike-off in cases of dishonesty.
It also ordered Mr Tisdall to pay costs of nearly £20,000.
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