12:16 pm, February 20, 2023
The former boss of the AA has lost a negligence lawsuit he brought against a firm of solicitors after he was fired following a drunken brawl with a colleague.
Robert Mackenzie was sacked in August 2017 after the assault in the bar of a five-star Surrey hotel during an ‘away day’ the previous month.
The executive chairman had wanted Rosenblatt Solicitors to repay him £360,000 in fees, after his challenge against the AA and several fellow directors for his dismissal failed.
Law.com said last November that in his claim form against Rosenblatt, Mackenzie was advised by them that there were ‘potential claims’ for conspiracy and unjust enrichment because of his dismissal and subsequent loss of AA shares.
He was then ordered to pay £178,500 to the AA directors he’d named in his challenge, according to Law.com.
On Friday (Feb 17), Judge Timothy Fancourt, sitting in the Chancery Division of the High Court, ruled that Rosenblatt was negligent by failing to advise Mackenzie that his case against the AA was weak and would possibly be rejected, said Reuters.
But even though Rosenblatt admitted being negligent, Mackenzie didn’t suffer any loss as he would nevertheless have brought his claims, said the judge.
The AA had been sued for wrongful dismissal by Mackenzie, who claimed the motoring organisation had fired him as part of a conspiracy to get him out from the post, said Reuters.
His case against the AA was taken over by another legal firm but was rejected. He then took legal action against Rosenblatt over its handling of the case.
Mackenzie’s lawyer, Daniel Jennings, was quoted in a statement as saying that the judgment was ‘very harsh’ and they anticipated lodging an appeal.
Conversely, Rosenblatt Solicitors’ founder Ian Rosenblatt issued a statement saying: ‘All that matters in life is winning and we won.’
According to Reuters, Mackenzie’s lawyers described the incident involving the colleague as an ‘altercation.
However, Rosenblatt said CCTV footage showed Mackenzie ‘repeatedly punching and slapping’ the colleague, said Reuters.
The incident ‘precipitated a mental health crisis’ from which Mackenzie ‘has still not fully recovered’, said Judge Fancourt.
Rosenblatt told the High Court in November he felt he’d been ‘totally misled’, reported Reuters.
He said he’d at first been told it was ‘a fracas in a bar’ but was then shocked when the AA’s lawyers showed him footage of the attack.
According to a Law.com report last November, Shakespeare Martineau, for Mackenzie, claimed in documents that Rosenblatt had ‘failed to advise [Mackenzie]…that the claim in conspiracy had no real prospect of success’.
But Law.com added that Rosenblatt’s representatives – Browne Jacobson – had argued that Rosenblatt had never advised that the claims would likely succeed.
Browne Jacobson also said that ‘when [Mackenzie] was advised that the conspiracy claim was vulnerable to being struck out, [Mackenzie] specifically advised…to proceed with the claim as he “did not want out”’.
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