White Rose Academies Trust (WRAT: R1) is a member of Luminate Education Group (LEG: R2). The Claimant was CEO of WRAT and then assumed the promoted position of ‘Deputy CEO’ of LEG. The Clamant brought various claims against R1 and R2. It is not in dispute that the Claimant was an employee of R1 but R2 denied he was an employer or worker. The ET agreed that the Claimant was not an employee or worker of R2 and all claims against R2 should be dismissed. The Claimant appealed.

The EAT dismissed the appeal. The ET did not err by failing to consider whether the Claimant was a section 43K(1)(a) worker of R2. On a fair and objective reading, that was not any part of his pleaded case; nor was this a case where, nevertheless, the fundamental duty of fairness made it necessary that this possibility should be raised and considered by the ET. Moustache v Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust [2025] EWCA 185; [2025] ICR 1231 considered and applied. This case was not in a category in which a point not advanced by a Claimant should be considered by the ET “as a matter of course”. Langston v Cranfield University [1998] IRLR 172 considered. Applying the guiding principles summarised in Secretary of State for Health v Rance [2007] IRLR 665 the EAT also declined to permit the claimant to run the point for the first time at the appeal stage.