Miss S Messi v All People Employment Ltd and 1 other — 2020

The claimant applied for interim relief in connection with a complaint of automatic unfair dismissal based on alleged protected disclosures. The tribunal applied the s.129 ERA 1996 test and the Taplin "pretty good chance" standard, and first considered whether the claimant was likely to establish that she was an employee of either respondent. It found the documents before it were inconsistent with employment status, including an agency worker agreement signed by the claimant and references by the claimant to herself as "agency staff".

The tribunal then considered the alleged protected disclosures. It said the material before it did not show that the claimant was likely to establish protected disclosures within Part IVA ERA 1996. It noted uncertainty about whether the complaints about data subject access requests involved a public interest disclosure or relevant wrongdoing, that there was no persuasive supporting documentation for the 25 May 2021 matter, and that the alleged furlough-fraud email of 20 May 2021 was said by the first respondent to have been anonymous.

On causation, the tribunal accepted the respondents' evidence that the claimant's assignment ended because the second respondent asked for her to be removed due to unacceptable conduct and poor performance, supported by the email of 1 July 2021. It held that the disclosure relied upon for 2 July 2021 was made after that email and could not therefore have been the reason for the dismissal. The application for interim relief was refused.