Ms P Borzych v Troubadour Properties Ltd and 4 others — 2025

The claim was presented on 26 February 2024 and pleaded unfair dismissal, including constructive unfair dismissal, sex discrimination, protected disclosure detriment, and unpaid holiday pay, notice pay, wages and other payments. The respondents applied to strike it out on 31 May 2024, contending that the Tribunal had no territorial jurisdiction and that the claimant was not an employee within section 230 ERA 1996. The matter came before Employment Judge Keogh on 1 May 2025, with the claimant appearing in person and the respondents represented by counsel.

On the day of hearing, the claimant had not complied with the case management directions and had only just obtained access to the bundle. The Tribunal allowed a short adjournment so that she could read the papers, but it treated the case on the evidence properly before it and did not accept late factual assertions that were not common ground or contained in the claim form. It found that allowing new factual material at that stage would unfairly prejudice the respondents, who had not prepared witness evidence because no timely factual case had been advanced on territorial jurisdiction.

Applying Lawson, Duncombe, Ravat and Hottak, the Tribunal held that the claimant's own claim form gave a Massachusetts, USA work address and that the respondents' Companies House documents showed she was ordinarily resident in the USA while a director, with her directorship ceasing on 18 September 2023. Even putting the claimant's case at its highest, the Tribunal found no reasonable prospect of her showing that she worked in Great Britain, that she was a peripatetic worker based in Great Britain, or that she was an expatriate employee with sufficiently strong connections to Great Britain and British employment law. It therefore struck out the claim under Rule 38(1) and did not go on to consider employment status. No remedy was awarded.