Roger Quickfall

Called 2003

Roger is approachable, intelligent and provides calm and collected advice. User friendly with impressive technical skills.

Legal 500 2024 (Band 1 Employment)

About

An outstanding advocate with a reputation for all-round excellence, Roger has been recognised by the guides to the profession for many years. Popular with clients and respected by judges, his common-sense approach, strategic thinking and dedication to the cause make him a firm favourite with the UK’s leading law firms.

Areas of Expertise

Accolades

Roger is ranked by Chambers and Partners for personal injury work.

Instructed nationally by the leading firms of solicitors and insurers.  He acts for claimants and defendants in complex and high value claims, often involving life-changing injuries.  He deals regularly with traumatic brain injuries, pain conditions and spinal fractures.  He is used to managing multiple medical experts, particularly in cases involving complex causation issues.

Road Traffic Accidents

Roger recently settled a claim for a defendant insurer against a silk for £150k which was pleaded up to £900k.

Occupiers’ Liability

Roger recently achieved a strike out of an occupier’s liability claim against a landlord on the ground that the landlord was not the occupier and an omission could to not be negligent.  There was therefore no ground for bringing the claim.  QOCS was disapplied and the defendant was awarded its costs.

Employers’ Liability

Considerable experience of warehouses, shops, logistics and the implementation and enforcement of health and safety policies from a previous career in retail area management.

As a specialist employment and personal injury barrister Roger is well placed to deal with the cross-over issues in EL cases particularly in relation to jurisdictional issues and compensation.

Product liability

Roger has been recognised by Chambers & Partners for product liability cases.

Public liability

Vicarious liability for assaults by employees.  Roger has written a number of articles on this expanding area of the law.

Highways claims including issues over whether the highway is maintainable at the public expense.

Dog bite and horse riding cases.

Child supervision cases.

Roger has regularly been instructed by insurers in fraud cases for several years.  In the majority of such cases, Roger succeeds in achieving a finding of fundamental dishonesty, the disapplication of QOCS and an indemnity costs award in favour of the defendant.

Roger is used to dealing with the full range of fraud issues including LVI, induced / staged accidents, undisclosed accidents / injuries and exaggerated claims.  He is regularly instructed in cases involving voluminous social media posts, medical records and insurance / financial intelligence.

Examples of recent cases include:

–      Achieving the dismissal of a personal injury claim arising from a collision in a car park where breach of duty had been admitted and damage had been caused to both vehicles;

–      Defeating a claim by a taxi driver who had failed to disclose his involvement in over a dozen previous accidents;

–      In another claim, when Roger was first instructed, liability had been admitted, the claim had been allocated to the multi-track and listed for a CCMC.  During the course of the litigation Roger successfully applied for the defendant to resile from his admission and for the claim to be re-allocated to the fast track.  At trial Roger succeeded in achieving the dismissal of the claim, a finding of fundamental dishonesty, disapplication of QOCS and an award of indemnity costs in the defendant’s favour.

Ranked in Band 1 Legal 500 for employment work.

Roger has been appearing successfully for employers and employees in cases of the utmost complexity in lengthy tribunal hearings and in the EAT for 15 years.  His cases often attract media interest.  His longest case was listed for 4 weeks.  Typically his cases are listed for around 2 weeks.

Unlike most employment barristers, Roger held senior management positions in large corporates prior to coming to the bar.  He was one of the youngest retail operations managers for TM Retail with a responsibility for 17 shops and over 100 staff.  In this role he chaired internal disciplinary hearings.  This experience has given him a useful perspective when it comes to relating to corporate clients, particularly those in the retail field.

Recent cases:

Race and disability discrimination (for employer):

The claimant was black African with cerebral palsy.  She pursued 20 claims of direct race discrimination and race related harassment relating to work allocation, holiday requests and management style; a claim of indirect disability discrimination and failure to make reasonable adjustments relating to access to a building; and victimisation claims relating to a recruitment competition and an alleged breach of confidentiality.  The latter was also the subject of a claim of victimisation constructive dismissal.  All the claims were dismissed following an 8-day liability hearing.

Whistleblowing (for claimant):

10-day complex whistleblowing claim involving a scientist who carried out molecular liver cancer research for which she needed access to samples of human liver tissue.  She believed her access to the samples was obstructed because some of her colleagues were trading in the samples for commercial profit.  After she raised her allegations, she was made redundant.  Roger successfully represented the scientist in the liability hearing involving 3000 pages of documents, 11 live witnesses and over 30 protected disclosures.  The Tribunal found that the principal reason for the redundancy was that the claimant had made protected disclosures.  Case reported in The Times:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dr-rajai-al-jehani-unfairly-dismissed-over-claims-about-human-tissue-trade-06c6sdmlr

Discrimination / Whistleblowing / Constructive Dismissal (for employer):

Successful defence of a claim pleaded in excess of £1m following 15 days in the Tribunal.  Complex constructive dismissal, whistleblowing and disability discrimination.  The claimant was the head of English at a school and disabled due to PTSD.  She asserted protected disclosures in relation to alleged non-compliance with exam regulations for the English Literature IB and that she had been treated badly as a result.  She asserted a reasonable adjustment of full pay during a year of sickness absence.

Case reported in the Daily Mail:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11328859/Head-English-private-school-loses-job-suicide-gaffe-employment-tribunal-says.html

Disability discrimination (for employer)

Complex disability discrimination and unfair redundancy claim.  The claimant was disabled with fibromyalgia, depression and PTSD.  She represented herself in claims of harassment, failure to make reasonable adjustments and disability-related redundancy dismissal.  The claimant produced 50 pages of pleadings and a 150-page witness statement.  The judge found that Roger was: “exemplary in addressing matters in the hearing as they arose with pragmatism and skill to enable a litigant in person with a disability not to be disadvantaged.”

After 2 hours of cross-examination by Roger, her colleague discontinued all her claims.

 

Complex case arising from the redundancy of a disabled senior manager of a large law firm.  The statement of case was circa 100 pages; 12 discrimination claims and claims of automatic and ordinary unfair dismissal; non-payment of annual bonuses.  Following 8 preliminary hearings and a 6-day liability hearing, there was a nil award.  This case is in the EAT in 2024.

Alleged sexual harassment of a bar supervisor by a customer (for employer)

Complex claim of indirect sex discrimination relating to whether the employer failed to investigate complaints of third party sexual harassment.  In tribunal in 2024.

This case has led to my podcast on the forthcoming changes to the law in relation to remedy for successful sexual harassment claims.

Unfair Dismissal (for claimant):

The issue was whether the claimant had resigned or whether he had been dismissed.  The alleged resignation was verbal, occurring during an unwitnessed conversation between the claimant and his boss – one person’s word against another.  The judge found the evidence: “extremely finely balanced.” Roger succeeded in achieving an award in excess of £27,000.

Unfair dismissal (for employer):

Successfully defended a nightclub who dismissed an employee for refusing to allow a client to enter its premises unless he removed his religious headwear. The incident was videoed on a mobile phone and uploaded to social media where it went viral and attracted international media attention.

EAT: whether a teacher assaulted a pupil with special needs

TUPE cases (for employers):

Dismissal of multi-party claim for loss of earnings on the basis that alleged terms in relation to pay did not transfer to new employer pursuant to TUPE.

Roger is currently instructed for the employers in relation to two complex TUPE claims.  One relates to whether an employee was part of a group or assigned to a contract which transferred.  The other relates to whether liability for pre transfer acts transferred to the new employer and was compromised by a settlement agreement.

Roger has also successfully represented a school academy accused of failing to provide employee liability information relating to equal pay claims pursuant to reg. 11(2)(d) TUPE.

Employment status:

A specialist in this area, Roger has spoken widely on the subject.  He has appeared in a number of multi-day hearings for both sides involving this complex issue.

Roger is authorised to accept instructions on a direct access basis.

Reported cases

KINGSTON UPON HULL CITY COUNCIL v (1) P SCHOFIELD (2) C MORRIS (3) J WEBSTER [2012] All ER (D) 342 (Nov) EAT

A complaint that an employer had wrongly evaluated an employee’s job under a job evaluation scheme could not give rise to a claim for unlawful deductions from wages, since it was not a claim for a quantified or quantifiable sum

 

LECTURES/SEMINARS

Employment Status

TUPE service provision changes

Protected conversations

EC (Rights against Insurers) Regs 2002
Roger has successfully appeared for the insurer in a leading decision on the EC Regs – Ashraf v RSA – contradicting Colinvaux & Merkin’s Insurance Contract Law: claimant cannot use the Regs to sue insurer directly where insurance policy has been cancelled post-accident.
Credit hire

Roger deals with high value credit hire claims for both Claimants and insurers, particularly with respect to taxi drivers and those who thought they were entitled to a courtesy car.

 

Motor Fraud

Multiple previous accidents, LVI, staged accidents

Roger is regularly instructed by insurers in noise induced hearing loss (NIHL) and Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome (HAVS) claims.  He has particular experience of dealing successfully with limitation and de minimis issues.  Recent examples include:

  • A successful claimant discontinued his claim following receipt of Roger’s skeleton argument for an appeal on the issue of date of knowledge in a HAVS claim;
  • A claimant discontinued following de minimis arguments in a NIHL claim.

Roger is part of the Education team and is keen to develop his practice in this area. He is happy to accept instructions on behalf of local authorities, academy trusts, the governing bodies of all schools, colleges and universities and individuals.

Roger is part of the PLP Investigations Team.  He has recently been involved in advising a law firm on the handling of a workplace investigation into the conduct of a partner which had led to non-compliance reporting to the SRA and where the same partner was separately demanding that a colleague be dismissed following a workplace altercation.  Prior to coming to the bar, Roger was a retail operations area manager with responsibility for over 100 staff across multiple sites.  In this role he carried out a number of workplace disciplinary investigations. He is keen to develop his practice in this area and to accept instructions relating to the undertaking of investigations into workplace disciplinary and grievance matters.

 

Legal 500 (2024) - Employment (Band 1) 

Chambers and Partners (2024) - Personal Injury (Band 3) - "Roger Quickfall provides excellent service, with very thorough preparation and a keen eye for detail."

Legal 500 (2023) - Employment (Tier 2) - "A user-friendly junior with impressive technical skills."

Legal 500 (2022) - Employment (Tier 2) - "Roger is approachable, intelligent and provides calm and collected advice."

Legal 500 (2021) -"Roger has provided invaluable support and guidance to our firm on a complicated multi-day disability discrimination matter. Determined with strategic focus, he can really explain quite complex areas of law in simple language."

Legal 500 (2020) - "Recommended for respondent work"

Legal 500 (2018/2019) - "He is well liked by clients."

Legal 500 (2017) - "An employment specialist"

Legal 500 (2016) - "He is experienced in whistleblowing, unfair dismissal, redundancy and Equality Act claims."

Legal 500 (2015) - "Focuses on the main issue in question without getting embroiled in irrelevant matters."

Legal 500 (2014) - "Very personable and straightforward"

Chambers and Partners (2014) - "A rising star who has a broad practice covering employment, product liability and clinical negligence work."

Chambers and Partners (2013) - "An emerging talent at the set. He has, sources say, a particular way of "drawing out relevant information" during cross-examination."

Legal 500 (2013) "Roger Quickfall is recommended."

Legal 500 (2012) "Excellent at making complex matters very simple."

Personal Injury Bar Association;

Leeds Medico-Legal Society;

AvMA;

Employment Law Bar Association;

Industrial Law Society;

Employment Lawyers Association.

BA (Hons) 2:1 French and Spanish with Marketing

CPE (Merit)

BVC (Commendation)

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