Agency worker not an employee, rules Court of Appeal

[NotAllThere]

The Labour government always maintained that contractors being an employee for unfair dismissal cases was different to being an employee for IR35. Different rules. That was part of the government's charm.

And recognising that, they gave IR35 caught contractors that 5% allowance to compensate...

[NotAllThere]

bin this one... I was going to put it into Legal but thought it more of general interest given that the idiot was trying to sue for unfair dismissal, hardly a contractor mindset!

Merged it anyway.

[Doggy Styles]

There has already been a case where a contractor (fearing an IR35 investigation coming from an ongoing PAYE enquiry), took his then 'employer' to an unfair dismissal tribunal. He lost. Strangely, his PAYE enquiry ended without turning into a full blown IR35 enquiry.

I'm pretty surprised that this hasn't been used more often. Certainly works as a defence. There are loads of cases of unfair dismissal by alledged contract staff where you would think the 'employee' would win, but they rarely do. Employment tribunals tend to take the 'contract staff, on contracts, are NOT employees' view even if they look like it in every other sense. Strange how they can use the same facts but get the opposite conclusion in IR35 cases.

The Labour government always maintained that contractors being an employee for unfair dismissal cases was different to being an employee for IR35. Different rules. That was part of the government's charm.

[TestMangler]

There has already been a case where a contractor (fearing an IR35 investigation coming from an ongoing PAYE enquiry), took his then 'employer' to an unfair dismissal tribunal. He lost. Strangely, his PAYE enquiry ended without turning into a full blown IR35 enquiry.

I'm pretty surprised that this hasn't been used more often. Certainly works as a defence. There are loads of cases of unfair dismissal by alledged contract staff where you would think the 'employee' would win, but they rarely do. Employment tribunals tend to take the 'contract staff, on contracts, are NOT employees' view even if they look like it in every other sense. Strange how they can use the same facts but get the opposite conclusion in IR35 cases.

[vetran]

May not have been the most sensible way for a contractor to behave but he went nuclear and it looks like the result is in our favour.

Any 'Real' experts care to comment?

Goody Goody.

[Doggy Styles]

bin this one... I was going to put it into Legal but thought it more of general interest given that the idiot was trying to sue for unfair dismissal, hardly a contractor mindset!

Was he paying his IR35 taxes?

[Spacecadet]

http://forums.contractoruk.com/accou...rt-appeal.html

Shall we use General or Legal? I'm happy for mods to merge mine into yours if people want.

bin this one... I was going to put it into Legal but thought it more of general interest given that the idiot was trying to sue for unfair dismissal, hardly a contractor mindset!

[d000hg]

http://forums.contractoruk.com/accou...rt-appeal.html

Shall we use General or Legal? I'm happy for mods to merge mine into yours if people want.

[Spacecadet]

'looking and acting like an employee' didn't make him one

'Looking and acting like an employee' didn't make him one

If this had been an IR35 case then who's taking bets that he would have been deemed to be an employee?

[d000hg]

source: 'Looking and acting like an employee' didn't make him one ? The Register

There was no need to imply a direct contract between an agency worker and an employer just because the worker's conditions did not exactly match those described in the agency agreement, the Court of Appeal has said.

The fact that the worker was fully integrated into the employer's business and asked permission to take holidays does not necessarily mean that he was an employee, the Court has found.

Did we already do this?