The First Respondent, On-Site, provides recruitment services predominantly to the construction sector. On some contracts the First Respondent uses its own directly employed staff to provide services to clients. For others, On-Site provides labour on a subcontracted basis; that is to say, they enter into a contract with another party, in this case Heritage, to provide the labour. The client was Fascel Group Ltd who needed work done at Broadmoor Hospital. The Claimant worked on the hospital under a sub-contract through Heritage. He claimed for unlawful deductions from wages when his pay structure changed. The ET found that there was no contract at all between the Claimant and On-Site and therefore that the Claimant was not a worker with On-Site. The ET did, however, conclude that there was a contract between the Claimant and Heritage. However, the ET also found that the Claimant was not a worker in that case because he was "not providing work for Heritage in any meaningful sense since they appear to have had no obligation to Fascel". The Claimant appealed.

The EAT allowed the appeal. The ET erred in concluding that there was no intention to create legal relations in circumstances where there was clearly a contract of some description between the Claimant and First Respondent.