Ms L Redmond v Hewitt Homes Ltd — 2023

The tribunal amended the respondent’s name to Hewitt Homes Limited and refused the respondent’s application to extend time for presenting a response, because no explanation was given for the delay and the respondent did not attend the hearing. The claimant’s claims were for unlawful deductions from wages and holiday pay arising from work she said she did between 17 October 2022 and 26 October 2022, including travel expenses. She said the work was done while she was in negotiations for the respondent to buy her business, and that she expected to be paid for it.

The tribunal found that the claimant was not a worker within section 230 Employment Rights Act 1996 or Regulation 2 of the Working Time Regulations 1998. It found she was running her own business on her own account, that the work was preparatory to the anticipated sale and to her becoming a director, and that no contract of employment had been entered into. The tribunal also found that the oral discussion about doing the work did not amount to a complete contract because no payment terms were negotiated, and that the claimant’s own evidence showed this was the sort of work she would normally do on a consultancy basis, which would make the respondent a client of her independent business.

The tribunal said that, even if worker status had been established, the wages claim was unquantifiable because no sum had been agreed for the work and the claimant was effectively seeking a reasonable sum for the work done. It cited Abellio East Midlands v Thomas [2022] EAT 20 and said such claims fall outside the jurisdiction of Part II Employment Rights Act 1996. It also recorded that expenses were not recoverable by virtue of section 27(2)(b) ERA 1996. On that basis, the claims for unlawful deductions from wages and holiday pay were dismissed.