Claimant v Tina Euri Ltd T/a Moving Waves — 2024

At a public preliminary hearing on 7 June 2024, Employment Judge Fredericks-Bowyer decided only the claimant's employment status for the purposes of her unfair dismissal and holiday pay complaints. The respondent's case was that Ms L Charles was a self-employed contractor engaged as a freelance marketing associate; the claimant's case was that she had been employed from 4 September 2017 until her effective date of termination on 7 July 2023.

The tribunal looked beyond the contractual wording and accepted that the respondent had prepared the documentation, including a contract describing the respondent as the client and the claimant as a freelance self-employed marketing associate. It found that the claimant did not run a marketing business on her own account, that there was an obligation on the respondent to provide work and on the claimant to do that work, that she was required to work 12 hours per week, and that the respondent exercised significant control and direction over her work.

On that basis, the tribunal held that the claimant was an employee of the respondent from 4 September 2017. It therefore found that she had standing to advance her unfair dismissal and holiday pay complaints. The judgment did not determine the merits of those complaints; it recorded that a further hearing would take place on 13 September 2024 to deal with the remaining issues.