The claimant worked for the respondents as a driver and personal assistant. His fixed-term contract expired on 30 April 2022, but he was re-engaged on a zero hours basis until mid-2022. He then issued claims arguing automatic unfair dismissal for asserting a statutory holiday right, notice pay and that his last date of employment was in October 2022 so he was not out of time. The ET struck out the claims, treating 30 April 2022 as the termination date, so the unfair dismissal claim was out of time, but discrimination claims proceeded. He appealed the decision on his dismissal date.

Judge Gullick KC dismissed the appeal. The ET had not erred when it struck out some of the claims because they had been presented outside the statutory time limit and had been entitled to determine the application to strike out using 30 April the termination date. That was the date that had been set out in a definitive list of issues, formulated following three earlier case management hearings. The ET was also entitled to find that there was no reasonable prospect of the claimant establishing that his employment had continued after 30 April 2022, because from that point onwards the parties’ relationship changed and he became a worker on a “zero hours” contract with no mutuality of obligation.