Mr J Behmanesh v A G Davies and Truck and Plant Sales Ltd: 6031404/2025
EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS
Case No 6031404/2025
Between
Mr J BehmaneshClaimantA G Davies and Truck and Plant Sales LtdRespondent
Before
Employment Judge SmithIn person for claimantDate 21 May 2026
JUDGMENT
Made pursuant to the Employment Tribunal Procedure Rules 2024[1]The Claimant was not a “worker” of either Respondent and therefore the Tribunal has no jurisdiction to consider his claim of unauthorised deductions from wages. The claim is therefore dismissed. EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS Claimant: Mr J Behmanesh 1st Respondent: Andrew George Davies 2nd Respondent: Truck and Plant Sales Limited Heard at: Leicester (via CVP) On: 21 May 2026 Before:
REASONS
Made pursuant to the Employment Tribunal Procedure Rules 2024 Request for written reasons[1]The judgment of the Employment Tribunal, and summary reasons, were delivered orally at the preliminary hearing that took place on 21 May 2026 and the written judgment sent to the parties on 28 May 2026. The judgment of the Tribunal was that the Claimant was not a “worker” of either Respondent and therefore the Tribunal had no jurisdiction to consider his claim of unauthorised deductions from wages. The claim was therefore dismissed.[2]By email dated 28 May 2026 the Claimant requested written reasons. As summary oral reasons were delivered, his right is to written summary reasons under rule 60(4A)(b)(i) of the Employment Tribunal Procedure Rules 2024, and these written summary reasons have been issued pursuant to that request.
The claim
[3]The Claimant’s claim was for unauthorised deductions from wages under section[13]Employment Rights Act 1996. In order to be able to pursue such a claim in the Employment Tribunal the Claimant has to establish that he was a “worker” of at least one of the two Respondents. He says that he was a worker, of the First Respondent. 4. The Second Respondent was added as a party by Employment Judge Hutchinson at a private preliminary hearing earlier in the proceedings, on the basis of the First Respondent’s assertion that it was his company (the Second Respondent), and not him personally, with whom the Claimant had a contract. I note that the Claimant was clear with me today that he did not have a contract with the Second Respondent. The law 5. The statutory definition of “worker” is set out in section 230(3) Employment Rights Act 1996. According to this definition, a “worker” is: “an individual who has entered into or works under… any other contract, whether express or implied (and if it is express) whether oral or in writing, whereby the individual undertakes to do or 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…” 6. The starting point in determining whether a person is a “worker” is to determine whether there was a contract. Following the case of Plastic Omnium Automotive Ltd v Horton [2023] EAT 85 – a decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal which is therefore binding on me – that contract has to be one to which the Claimant and (in this case) one of the Respondents was a party (see paragraphs 58 to 62 of the judgment of HHJ Katherine Tucker). 7. What was clarified by Plastic Omnium was that there must be a direct contractual relationship between the putative “worker” and the person they are undertaking to perform work personally for. Putting it another way, if the individual is person X, he cannot be a “worker” if he works under a contract that exists between person Y and person Z, but not himself. Person X must be a party to the contract in question. The parties’ positions 8. As set out above, the Claimant’s position was that the two parties to the contract were himself personally, and Mr Davies personally (the First Respondent). 9. The Respondents’ joint position was that the Claimant was not personally a party to the contract at all. Their position was that the Claimant’s own limited company – Mary J Construction Limited – was one contracting party, and the Second Respondent the other. Findings and analysis 10. Following Plastic Omnium, I therefore first have to find who the parties to the contract under which the Claimant worked were. There was no written agreement in this case, which (if it had existed) would probably have been determinative of this issue. In these circumstances my task was to decide who the parties to the contract were, based on the oral evidence I heard and from the very limited documentary evidence I was shown during the course of the preliminary hearing. 11. On the balance of probabilities I have concluded that, of the two Respondents, it was the Second Respondent – Truck and Plant Sales Ltd - which was the correct Respondent party to the contract. 12. My reasons for this finding are as follows. Mr Davies (the First Respondent) accepted, and I found, dealt with the Claimant on a day-to-day basis in relation to the work the Claimant carried out. That is not, in my judgment, an indicator that Mr Davies personally was a contracting party. He is the managing director of the Second Respondent, which is the business he owns and runs. It is a business engaged in the buying and selling of commercial vehicles, plant and trailers. The HGV driving work all parties accepted the Claimant did was for that company, given its business activities, rather than for Mr Davies personally even though he was the face of the business itself. 13. The question then is who the other party to the contract was. In my judgment, and again on the balance of probabilities, I find that the other party was Mary J Construction Limited.
The law
[14]There were a number of reasons for making this finding. It was admitted that the Claimant is the director of that company and that he carries out work (largely building work) under the auspices of that business. Having been shown his public profile I found that the Claimant holds himself out on WhatsApp as a business account user, and Mary J Construction Limited logos appear all over the profile itself.[15]In addition, whilst no invoices or cheques were shown to me, Mr Davies’s oral evidence was that when payment was made by the Second Respondent for the driving work the Claimant did, it was done via cheques made out to Mary J Construction Limited rather than the Claimant personally. In the absence of a challenge to this assertion, I accepted this evidence. Mary J Construction Limited was held out by the Claimant to both Respondents as being who they were dealing with during this relationship, and that was supported by how they were paid.[16]Finally, there was unchallenged evidence (which I again accepted) that on one occasion the Claimant was able to instruct another of Mary J Construction Limited’s employees to attend at the Second Respondent’s location, and that that individual carried out some valeting work on the Second Respondent’s vehicles whilst engaged on the site. It was not suggested that the Claimant was simply bringing a friend or acquaintance along to help out the Second Respondent. That the Claimant was able to procure the services of his company’s employee for this purpose also indicated to me that the other contracting party was in fact Mary J Construction Limited rather than the Claimant as a mere individual.
Conclusion
[17]In these circumstances the Claimant’s claim of unauthorised deductions from wages is bound to fail, as he personally was not a party to the contract under which he did driving work for the Second Respondent. His company, Mary J Construction Limited, was the other party to that contract.[18]I am bound by the case of Plastic Omnium and based upon my finding as to who the correct parties to the contract in question were, the claim must fall at this first hurdle.[19]This judgment does not affect the ability of Mary J Construction Limited to pursue the matters raised in this claim within the civil jurisdiction, but the Employment Tribunal has no jurisdiction to do so where the Claimant has failed to establish he was a “worker” within the meaning of section 230(3)(b). As he personally was not a party to the contract, he could not be a “worker”.[20]For these reasons, the claim is therefore dismissed.