ALICE WALSHE v Why Wouldn’T You Ltd — 2024

This was a reserved judgment following a preliminary hearing before Employment Judge Bloch KC sitting alone at Watford Tribunal by CVP on 4 September 2024. The hearing was listed by EJ Warren on 15 July 2024 to determine the claimant's employment status in relation to her engagement by the respondent as a home-based audio typist between 15 July 2020 and 30 January 2024 (and in particular between 31 January 2022 and 30 January 2024). The claimant brought a claim of constructive unfair dismissal under ss.94, 95(1)(c) and 98 ERA 1996, together with unparticularised pay claims potentially encompassing a contractual claim, unauthorised deductions from wages and holiday pay under the Working Time Regulations 1998. The respondent's Grounds of Resistance denied the requisite employee/worker status.

The tribunal found that the claimant was not a Limb (a) employee/worker or a Limb (b) worker of the respondent under a global or umbrella contract for the relevant period, because there was insufficient mutuality of obligation between individual assignments. However, the tribunal found that during each individual assignment (each piece of typing work) the claimant was both a Limb (a) employee/worker and a Limb (b) worker of the respondent. The judge concluded that there was a sufficient framework of control over the claimant's personal services during each assignment, producing a degree of subordination indicative of employee status, and that the claimant was not in business on her own account.

The judgment is confined to the preliminary issue of employment status; the substantive claims of constructive unfair dismissal, unlawful deductions and holiday pay were not adjudicated and no remedies were awarded. The tribunal declined to add further continuity-of-employment issues proposed by the respondent at the outset, on the basis that they fell outside the scope of the preliminary hearing as ordered, the claimant was unrepresented, and time was short.