Anita Kozicz v Zortmund Horvath t/a Nonstopdiag — 2025

After converting the listed final hearing into a public preliminary hearing on the issue of employment status, the Tribunal found that the claimant was neither an employee nor a worker of the respondent within the meaning of section 230 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. The claimant and the respondent had been in a personal relationship and had purchased a home together, from which the respondent ran his appliance and electronics repair business. The claimant said she had been employed as office manager from October 2021 to January 2024; the respondent denied any employment and said she had assisted him on an ad-hoc basis as his partner.

The Tribunal did not accept the documents the claimant relied on (a 'main terms' document and a new starter form) as evidence of a contract of employment, finding on the balance of probabilities that the main terms document was not signed at the time the claimant said it was. Applying the legal presumption that there is no intention to create legal relations in family arrangements, and considering the absence of any consideration paid as a salary or any mutuality of obligation, the Tribunal concluded that no contract of employment or worker's contract existed.

In the absence of jurisdiction, the claims of unfair dismissal, unauthorised deductions from wages and failure to provide an itemised pay statement were all dismissed in their entirety. PDF was truncated; the dispositive finding is recorded in the available text.

Source tags (gov.uk)

• Breach of Contract
• Unfair Dismissal
• Unlawful Deduction from Wages
• Working Time Regulations and Written Pay Statement

• section 230 Employment Rights Act 1996

The full judgment is available on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

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