Employment status; the foundational three-part test for employment: (1) personal service, (2) control, and (3) consistency with a contract of service.
1 WLR 725 - Status; agency; agency workers are not employees of the employment agency (unless contract says so).
Status; mutuality of obligation; casual workers who could refuse work were not employees.
Status; employment; when determining whether an individual is an employee, the tribunal must look at the reality of the employment relationship rather than the label applied by the parties; approved by the House of Lords in Okoro v Taylor Woodrow Construction Ltd [2012].
ICR 175 (HL) / [1994] ICR 720 (ECJ) - Pregnancy; dismissal; dismissing a woman because she is unavailable due to pregnancy is sex discrimination.
Unfair dismissal; qualifying period; time spent in the same group of companies counts for continuity.
Employment status; mutuality of obligation; tour guides with no obligation to accept work were not employees.
2 AC 28 - Status; discrimination; a minister of religion can be a 'worker' for discrimination law purposes even if not an 'employee'.
Status; agency workers; there was no contract of service between the agency worker and the end-user client; the tripartite structure of employment agency arrangements means the worker's contract is with the agency, not the end-user.
Status; the Supreme Court established that tribunals must look at the 'reality of the situation' and disregard sham contract clauses.
Employment status; dancer; economic reality. A lap dancer was not an employee: clients paid her directly, she paid the club for the right to perform, and she bore the economic risk of a poor night. The payment structure negated the wage-work bargain necessary for a contract of service. Leading authority on economic reality defeating employee status in the adult entertainment sector.
Limb (b) worker status; LLP member; whistleblowing. A solicitor member of an LLP was a limb (b) worker under s.230(3)(b) ERA 1996 and could bring a protected disclosure detriment claim. The Supreme Court held there is no freestanding subordination requirement for limb (b) status: the statutory question is whether the individual undertakes to perform work personally for a party who is not their client or customer.
Status & Holiday Pay; confirmed worker status for a plumber (SC); later clarified that a worker who takes unpaid holiday because the employer refuses to pay for it can still claim for that holiday on termination (CA).
Status; worker; drivers were workers while the app was on, due to control and subordination.
Limb (b) worker status; associate dentist; personal service; substitution. The tribunal erred in finding an associate dentist was not a worker: a heavily fettered substitution clause, permitting substitution only from a pre-approved pool in limited circumstances, did not negate personal service. The starting point is the purposive statutory test, not shorthand glosses or the labels the contract adopts.
Worker Status; substitution clause; a genuine right of unfettered substitution defeats worker status.
Employment status; mutuality of obligation; control; part-time football referees. Mutuality of obligation and control are necessary but not sufficient conditions of a contract of employment: mutuality can be satisfied within each individual engagement however short, and control requires only a framework of contractual control rather than day-to-day supervision. Short, discrete engagements are capable of being contracts of employment.
Employment status; unfair prejudice; quasi-partnership. HHJ Matthews found that shareholder-directors of a family farming company were employees, despite the ET having found the opposite on largely the same facts. The High Court applied the rule in Hollington v Hewthorn (recently reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in Evans v Barclays Bank plc [2025] UKSC 48) to hold the ET's findings inadmissible, and reached its own conclusion based on documentary evidence including accounts, P60s, bank records, and termination letters. Weekly payments held to be wages, not directors' drawings.
Employment status; shareholder-directors of a family farming company found not to be employees or workers. The ET applied the PMOL framework and concluded: no control exercised by the respondent over claimants' work; substitution was possible and occurred in practice; payments were more closely aligned with directors' drawings than employment earnings; no intention to create an employment relationship. The absence of an obligation of personal service was fatal to the limb (b) worker claim. EAT refused appeal at sift, no arguable error of law.
Status (Dutch law); classification of an arbeidsovereenkomst (art 7:610 BW) depends on all circumstances of the case viewed in connection; nine circumstances listed, including embedding of the work in the organisation and whether the worker behaves or can behave as an entrepreneur in economic life. Deliveroo riders were employees.