Ms Emilia Maria Da Silva Batista v Estate of the late Veronica Janes Addison Cohen and 2 others — 2019

At the open preliminary hearing on 6 December 2019, Employment Judge H Clark considered the Respondents' strikeout application in relation to Ms Emilia Maria Da Silva Batista's claims against the estate and the executors of the late Mrs Cohen. The Tribunal did not strike out the case on the basis of employment status alone, noting that status was a nuanced issue and that there was insufficient evidence to decide against the Claimant at that stage.

The Tribunal then accepted the legal proposition that a personal contract ends by operation of law on death, and held that the Claimant had no reasonable prospects of showing that her employment was adopted or continued by the executors after Mrs Cohen's death in December 2017. It relied on the absence of any request for wages for about 16 months, the fact that the Claimant lived in the flat rent-free with utilities paid by the estate, and the documentary material showing that repairs, cleaning and preparation for sale were arranged by others rather than by the Claimant.

On that basis, the Tribunal struck out the Claimant's contention that she was dismissed in April 2019 and said the unfair dismissal claim was problematic because the death of an employer terminates the contract without a dismissal. It recorded that any claims the Claimant may have against Mrs Cohen as at December 2017 were unaffected, and that the redundancy payment and itemised payslips claims survived the strikeout, subject to later time-limit issues to be determined at another preliminary hearing.