Employment Tribunal

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The claim was first heard in the Employment Tribunal (ET).

2. The court of first instance (ET) initially held that Ms Quashie was not an employee as there was no relevant mutuality of obligation, meaning there was no contract and that there are factors consistent with the Claimant (Ms Quashie) being self employed.

3. The judge sitting in the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) was His Honour Judge McMullen QC (sitting alone).

4. In the EAT the appellant was Ms Nadine Quashie and the Respondent was Stringfellow Restaurants Ltd.

5. The EAT considered it to be relative that Nadine Quashie attended meetings on Thursday’s because it was found that the regular performance of work and/or by the judge's findings on the claimant's expectation of work, …show more content…

The Court of Appeal did agree with the ET Analysis regarding mutuality of obligations and that the ET was entitled to state that there wasn’t a relationship of employee and employer established by this arrangement. Mr Linden’ submission was accepted, in that the EAT ‘‘was in fact using the concept of mutuality of obligation in two divergent ways’’ . He submitted that the concept is used in such a way that The Tribunal was concentrating on the nature of the obligations and concluded that there wasn’t mutual obligations of a sort which fixed the contract into the employment capacity.

14. The Tribunal extracted, from the Ready Mixed Concrete case, three elements, which must be established if the relationship is to establish a contract of employment, one of these elements was a requirement in there being a mutuality of obligation between the employee and the …show more content…

The material facts in the Court of Appeal decision included that the employer was not under any obligation to pay the dancer. The key evidence for that was that she discussed her own fees with the clients, took the risk that on any night she would potentially earn nothing and receive back from the employer only money received from clients, by cash or ‘Heavenly Money’ after deductions. Also Ms Quashie paid the the club in order to perform at their venues. In addition, Stringfellow was not obliged to provide work or pay her for any work done. If she was on a rota the club would provide her a facility for dancing that is her earnings came from the clients. In return she had to comply with specific rules. A few of those rules were required to enable Stringfellow to maintain their licences. Also with regards to rules, Ms Quashie claimed she never received a formal contract, however she received a handbook, which was found to be sufficient as it contained the house rules. Therefore, she was bound by the terms of the contract, as the contract was performed in accordance with those specific terms.

16. The grounds of appeal in the Court of Appeal were that there was a misreading of the EAT’ decision. It was held that the conclusion of the employer not being under obligation to pay any remuneration to the claimant for the work she did was correct. It was held that the EAT was not permitted to interfere with that finding. The lack of such obligation was not consistent with the notion

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