Taxi Driver Online

I'm posting some legal cases that may be helpful to new subscribers to TDO. I think this case can be found on Balii.

Regards

JD

EMPLOYMENT
Mingeley v Pennock and another (trading as Amber Cars): [2004] EWCA Civ 328
CA: Buxton and Maurice Kay LJJ and Sir Martin Nourse: 9 February 2004
The applicant was a taxi driver who owned his own vehicle and paid the respondents, the operators of a taxi service, £75 per week for a radio and access to their computer system, which allocated calls from customers to a fleet of drivers. Though under his contract with the respondents the applicant could not work for any other operator and was required to wear the respondents' uniform and adhere to the respondents' scale of charges, he was not obliged to work any particular hours, or at all, and he kept all the fare money. The applicant complained to the employment tribunal that the respondents had discriminated against him on grounds of his race. The tribunal held that it had no jurisdiction to hear the complaint because the applicant was not in the employment of the respondents for the purposes of the Race Relations Act 1976, as he was not obliged "personally to execute any work or labour" within the meaning of "employment" in section 78(1) of the Act. The Employment Appeal Tribunal dismissed an appeal by the applicant.

The applicant appealed.

The Court of Appeal held:
The applicant's only contractual obligation to the respondents was to pay the weekly fee for access to their computer system and, if he chose to work, to do so within the requirements of the contract. The absence of any obligation to work meant that his contract with the respondents could not be a contract "personally to execute any work or labour" within the meaning of section 78(1) of the Race Relations Act 1976.

The appeal was dismissed.