Mr J Clements v MAJ Joinery Limited — 2021

This was a preliminary hearing on employment status for a statutory redundancy payment claim. The tribunal held that Mr Clements was not working under a contract of employment with MAJ Joinery Limited and therefore was not an employee within the meaning of s.230 ERA 1996. On that basis, the tribunal said it had no jurisdiction to consider the redundancy pay claim, which was dismissed.

In reaching that conclusion, the tribunal found that both parties had intended the relationship to be self-employed from the outset and that this had not changed over the four and a half years in issue. It accepted evidence that Mr Clements was paid on a self-employed basis, supplied his UTR details, did not receive holiday pay or sick pay from the respondent, was not subject to the respondent's disciplinary procedure, and could accept or refuse offers of work. The tribunal also found there was no sufficient mutuality of obligation, no sufficient control by the respondent, and only limited substitution in practice, including the ability for colleague S to do jobs instead of or alongside the claimant.

The tribunal referred to the Ready Mixed Concrete formulation, as confirmed in Autoclenz, and to the need for the "irreducible minimum" of mutuality of obligation discussed in Carmichael and Montgomery. It concluded that the claimant had failed to establish the elements needed for a contract of service. The fact that he had worked for the respondent over a lengthy period, and had been paid weekly when he worked, did not displace the overall conclusion that the relationship was one of self-employment rather than employment.