Mr Taiwo Adegbite v DPD Group UK Limited AT A PRELIMINARY HEARING — 2022

At the preliminary hearing on 23 August 2022, Employment Judge Clark considered whether Mr Taiwo Adegbite had little or no reasonable prospect of succeeding in his unfair dismissal, discrimination, and unlawful deductions claims. The central issue was whether, under the DPD owner-driver franchise agreement, he was an employee or worker within section 230 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 or in employment within section 83 of the Equality Act 2010. The tribunal did not make general findings of fact at this stage; it assessed prospects of success on the claimant's case at its highest.

The tribunal held that the franchise agreement was structured so that the franchisee need not perform the driving personally and could delegate the driving work to others. The requirement that substitute drivers meet conditions such as licence, age, training, and checks was treated as a quality condition, not a fetter on substitution. The judge found no realistic prospect of showing that the substitution clause was a sham or that the agreement should be treated as requiring personal service.

The claimant's arguments that he was a sole trader, always intended to do the driving himself, hired a van from the respondent, used only a small number of substitute drivers, and lacked control over his business were accepted as points with some force on control and integration, but not as showing employee or worker status in the absence of personal performance. The tribunal considered the earlier Stojsavljevic litigation on the same or materially similar franchise terms to be highly relevant and found no realistic basis for distinguishing it.

Applying the strike-out threshold under rule 37, and noting the caution required in strike-out cases from Anyanwu and Ezsias, the tribunal concluded that this was one of the rare cases where the prospects of success could be assessed with sufficient clarity. It struck out all claims because there was no realistic basis on which Mr Adegbite could establish employee, worker, or employment status on the facts before the tribunal.