The Claimant her arrangement with the Respondent in 2023 and brought various complaints to the ET. To be entitled to brings these complaints, she needed to have been, depending on the complaint, an employee or a worker of the Respondent. The Respondent contended that she was neither. The ET found that there was a contract in place which required as its dominant purpose the Claimant to personally do work and that the Claimant was a worker under limb b) of section 230 of the ERA. The ET also found that the Claimant was a worker, having taken into account the factors consistent and inconsistent with employment, finding as a matter of overall assessment that an employment relationship existed. The Respondent appealed.

The EAT dismissed the appeal in relation to worker status but allowed it relating to employee status. On the worker status ground, the ET did not err in concluding that the Respondent’s contract was with the Claimant and not her limited company. It properly relied upon evidence which supported that conclusion and it did not fail to consider other evidence pointing against it. The EAT allowed the employee status appeal: having regard to findings that relevant documentation expressly stipulated that there was no obligation on the Respondent to offer monthly shifts, and no obligation on the Claimant to accept them, and as to the system by which monthly shifts were bid for and allocated, the conclusion that the Claimant was an employee was insufficiently supported or explained. Finally, the ET's conclusion that the necessary obligation of personal service was not negated by an ostensible right to send a substitute, because substitution would have been impracticable, was insufficiently supported or explained.