Simon took legal action against the venue’s owner Morrison Bro’s Ltd, claiming he had been discriminated against on the grounds of “unlawful belief-based discrimination”.
This was agreed between the two parties by joint minute, though the company initially defended the case.
His lawyer claimed the venue had “dragged out proceedings” despite knowing any defence was “untenable” and that it had admitted acting unlawfully “on the eve of the hearing”.
He told the court this led to his client to incur “avoidable expenses at every stage”, and called on the court to award him expenses incurred to date.
Responding, the venue’s lawyer, Darren Cox, disputed whether it would have been possible to settle the matter pre-litigation.
He said not all costs incurred to date related to the question of liability, and called for a decision on expenses to be deferred “until the end”.
Judge Sheriff Roderick Flinn said: “In this case parties have agreed by joint minute that the defender discriminated against the pursuer, contrary to the provisions of the Equalities Act 2010.”
He added that the defender had acted “unreasonably” in leaving it until 5 August to accept it had discriminated against Simon.
He said expenses relating to preparations for a substantive hearing would be awarded at the higher “solicitor-client” rate.
