Mr Christopher Johnson v Transopco UK Ltd
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | Judge Auerbach,Mr H Singh,Miss SM Wilson |
| Neutral Citation | [2022] EAT 6 |
| Subject Matter | Not landmark |
| Court | Employment Appeal Tribunal |
| Published date | 18 January 2022 |
Judgment approved by the court for handing down JOHNSON v TRANSOPCO UK LTD
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Neutral Citation Number: [2022] EAT 6
Case No: EA-2020-000780-AT
EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL
Rolls Building
Fetter Lane, London, EC4A 1NL
Date: 18 January 2022
Before :
HIS HONOUR JUDGE AUERBACH
MR H SINGH
MISS S M WILSON CBE
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Between :
MR CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON Appellant
- and -
TRANSOPCO UK LTD Respondent
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Mr C Milsom (instructed by Bates Wells & Braithwaite LLP) for the Appellant
Mr A Short QC and Mr P Linstead (instructed by EMW Law LLP) for the Respondent
Hearing date: 8 November 2021
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JUDGMENT
Judgment approved by the court for handing down JOHNSON v TRANSOPCO UK LTD
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SUMMARY
WORKER STATUS
The respondent in the employment tribunal operated the Mytaxi App. From 2014 the claimant
worked full time in business on his own account as a black-cab (Hackney Carriage) driver in London.
In February 2017 he downloaded the driver version of the respondent’s App. Apart from the odd trip
in April he did not start to actively use it until around the end of July 2017. He made no trips using
it after 18 April 2018 when he was removed from it. Throughout that period he continued to source
work away from the App as a self-employed black-cab driver.
The claimant brought complaints which depended on his having been a worker of the respondent, as
defined in section 230(3) Employment Rights Act 1996 and other relevant legislation. The tribunal
found that the respondent did not deal with passengers as agent of the claimant. The passengers
contracted for transportation services with the respondent as principal. These were delivered pursuant
to a separate contract between the claimant and the respondent pursuant to which he had an obligation
of personal service. However, the claimant was not a worker of the respondent because the
respondent was a client or customer of his taxi-driving business.
The claimant’s appeal against that last conclusion was dismissed. The tribunal had not placed an
impermissible focus on the claimant’s activities when he was not working for the respondent. It had
reached a proper conclusion about the nature of his business activity, and whether the jobs he did for
the respondent formed part of that same business. Secretary of State for Justice v Windle [2016]
ICR 721 applied. The Hospital Medical Group Limited v Westwood [2013] ICR 415 considered.
Its approach to the found facts in relation to allocation of financial risk, control, and integration was
not wrong in law or perverse. It gave proper consideration to whether the claimant was in reality in
a dependent or subordinate relationship with the respondent in accordance with Autoclenz v Belcher
[2011] ICR 1157 and Uber BV v Aslam [2021] ICR 657. It did not err in its approach to the licensing
regime. Its decision was adequately reasoned, articulate and clear.
Judgment approved by the court for handing down JOHNSON v TRANSOPCO UK LTD
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HIS HONOUR JUDGE AUERBACH:
Introduction
1. The respondent in the employment tribunal, Mytaxi Network Limited, operated the Mytaxi
App (the “App”). The tribunal found that from 2014 the claimant worked full time in business on his
own account as a black-cab (or H ackney Carriage) driver in London. In February 2017 he
downloaded the driver version of the App. Apart from the odd trip in April he did not start to actively
use it until around the end of July 2017. He made no trips using it after 18 April 2018 when he was
removed from it. Throughout that period he continued to source work away from the App as a self-
employed black-cab driver.
2. In August 2018 the claimant presented a claim to the employment tribunal. As of January
2020 his live complaints were of protected-disclosure detriment, for working-time holiday pay, of
unlawful deduction from wages and of failure to pay the national minimum wage. To be entitled to
pursue all of these complaints he had to be, in law, a worker of the respondent. Section 230(3)
Employment Rights Act 1996 (“the 1996 Act”) defines a worker as follows.
“(3) In this Act “worker” (except in the phrases “shop worker” and “betting worker”) means
an individual who has entered into or works under (or, where the employm ent has ceased,
worked under)—
(a) a contract of employment, or
(b) any other contract, whether express or implied and (if it is express) whether oral or in
writing, whereby the individual undertakes to do o r perform personally any work or services
for another party to the contract whose status is not by virtue of the contract that of a client or
customer of any profession or business undertaking carried on by the individual;
and any reference to a worker’s contract shall be construed accordingly.”
3. The definitions of “worker” for the purposes of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 and
the Working Time Regulations 1998 are materially the same. The claimant originally claimed also
to have been an employee of the respondent pursuant to section 230(3)(a) of the 1996 Act; but, by
January 2020 his case was solely that, at the relevant times, he was a worker of the respondent
pursuant to section 230(3)(b) – a so-called “limb (b) worker”.
4. There was a preliminary hearing in the tribunal to determine the claimant’s status, before EJ
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