Miss K Jones v Fusion Professional Ltd — 2026

At a public preliminary hearing, the Tribunal determined Miss Jones's employment status, the date on which her working relationship with Fusion Professional Ltd ended, and whether her claims were presented in time. It found that the relationship ended on 28 March 2025 at the latest, relying on contemporaneous communications, the absence of invoices after March 2025, and Miss Jones's 16 May 2025 Facebook post stating that she had ceased working for or with the respondent in March.

Although the parties had described Miss Jones as self-employed after she established Grand Master Brands Ltd and began invoicing the respondent, that label was not determinative. The Tribunal found that personal service and mutuality of obligation were present, but that the respondent did not exercise sufficient control for the relationship to constitute employment. Miss Jones controlled her working arrangements, hours, client relationships and location, while features commonly associated with employment, including sick pay, holiday pay, pension provision and disciplinary arrangements, were absent. She was therefore a worker under section 230(3)(b) ERA 1996, but not an employee under section 230(1).

Because Miss Jones was not an employee, the Tribunal lacked jurisdiction to determine her constructive unfair dismissal and breach-of-contract claims, and dismissed them. The Tribunal also found that claims arising from the end of the relationship had to be presented by 27 June 2025, whereas Miss Jones approached ACAS on 21 July 2025. She knew about tribunal time limits and the ACAS process, and by May or the first week of June understood that she might have tribunal claims. The Tribunal found that it was reasonably practicable to present the relevant claims in time, notwithstanding her evidence about illness and mixed emotions, and dismissed the statutory holiday-pay and unlawful-deductions claims as out of time.

The disability-discrimination allegation concerned derogatory comments which Miss Jones said the respondent made to people in its workplace and wider industry. The Tribunal found that she first learned of the alleged statements in May 2025, after the working relationship had ended. Applying section 123 Equality Act 2010, it held that this claim was presented in time and would proceed; the preliminary judgment did not determine its merits.

No compensation or other monetary remedy was determined at this preliminary hearing. The references to breach of confidentiality and injury to feelings were not treated as separate claims after Miss Jones accepted that they were not independently actionable claims within the Tribunal's statutory framework.