Mr T Pugh Mrs C Marks v Cygnet Health Care Limited — 2020

This was a preliminary hearing to determine whether the two claimants, who sat as Independent Hospital Managers on Mental Health Act review panels, were employees of the respondent for the purposes of the Employment Rights Act 1996. The tribunal found that the written agreements accurately reflected the parties’ relationship and that the claimants were engaged in a non-exclusive, fixed-term arrangement, paid an honorarium per hearing, with responsibility for their own tax and national insurance.

The tribunal found that the claimants were generally required to provide personal service once booked, and any substitution was limited and occasional. However, it found insufficient mutuality of obligation for a contract of employment: the claimants had to make themselves available for at least two days per month, but the respondent was not obliged to offer work, and the claimants could decline or cancel bookings. The tribunal also found only limited control by the respondent, noted that the claimants worked for other providers, and concluded they were not integrated into the respondent’s organisation, but instead were presented as independent of it in keeping with the statutory function they performed.

Standing back and assessing the relationship as a whole, the tribunal concluded that the claimants were not employees of the respondent. Their claims for unfair dismissal and for written reasons for dismissal therefore failed and were dismissed in their entirety.