I have a client who has been disallowed IIDB as he was not an employed earner.

My client was working full time when he left his job to go and work for a trainer as a stable hand. He moved jobs to be able to race horses and get experience to become a professional jockey. He was paid "pocket money" and received free board and lodgings in exchange for stable work, work on the farm and to race the horses. When he road a horse in a race the owner and trainer paid him £64 and paid for all the entry fees. His jockey licence was also paid for by his employers.
I have found that all conditional jockeys (rode over jumps) were classed as employed from 1978, but I cannot prove anything for the time of his accident in 1971. No joy from the jockey club.
We have an appeal date for a tribunal hearing.
Has anyone ever had a case like this before or is able to advise?
PS There are no existing contracts of employment and the employer is now deceased.
Would be grateful for any help.

The Injured Jockeys Fund - http://www.ijf.org.uk/ - might have some advice or information.

Take a look at the HMRC leaflet "Employed or self employed?" available at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/pdfs/ir56.pdf . It will give you a good idea of how HMRC categorise his employment status. You will need to find out who was responsible for paying his NI contributions and income tax.

Although there could be an argument that even if he was self employed for tax and NI purposes - was the actaul relationship that of an employed earner - for example - did he have some control of where he worked, did he have to agree holidays etc - this has been a partcular problem in the building industry where many 'self employed' workers were in fact employees.

and there was a case involving ready mix concrete - man, as i recall, on SC60 - where he was in fact an employee/employed earner despite all.

Ready Mixed Concrete(South East) Ltd v Minister of Pensions and National Insurance)

The qeustion is one of control. Clearly the work of a stable hand is controlled by the trainer, not by the stable hand.

If he still has contacts, it might also be worth seeing if you can get evidence from former colleagues from that time

Hello

You could also try The Mark Davies Injured Riders Fund. Very helpful charity assisting anyone injured in an equestrian accident/ incident with practical,legal or financial support.

A worker is defined as someone who works under:-
· a contract of employment (that is, an employee); or
· any other contract, whether written or verbal, where the individual undertakes to perform any work or services for someone else, and the other person is not a customer or client of the individual.

An individual's statutory employment rights will depend on whether s/he is an employee or a worker. Workers have certain statutory rights such as the right to be paid the minimum wage and the right to a limit on the hours of her/his working week (with some exceptions, such as members of the armed forces). Workers are not entitled to other statutory rights, such as the right to claim unfair dismissal, because these rights are only available to employees.

Employees are a particular type of worker and have more statutory rights than workers, for example, employees have the right to claim unfair dismissal (usually after they have worked for their employer for one year) and the right to statutory redundancy pay (after they have worked for two years).

An employee is a type of worker who works under a contract of employment

A contract of employment is an agreement between an employer and a worker setting out the terms under which they will have a working relationship. A contract of employment is defined as a contract of service or apprenticeship and someone working under a contract of employment is an employee. If someone is working not under a contract of employment but under a contract for services s/he will not be an employee but will be self-employed. It is important to be clear whether your client is an employee or is self-employed.

An employee always has a contract of employment with her/his employer. The employee may not have anything in writing, but a contract will still exist. This is because the employee's agreement to work for the employer, and the employer's agreement to pay the employee forms a contract.

1 It is important to make the distinction between who is an employee and who is self-employed, as only employees are covered by the protection of employment legislation which gives them the right to, for example, itemised pay slips, written statement of terms and conditions, statutory sick pay, statutory maternity pay, statutory paternity pay, statutory adoption pay, unfair dismissal and redundancy.

It is common for employers to claim that a worker is a self-employed person when s/he is actually an employee. This is so that the employer can avoid paying national insurance contributions and administering PAYE, and also to avoid having to pay the employee anything s/he is statutorily entitled to.

A worker may believe that s/he is self-employed because that is what s/he has agreed to, but s/he may actually be an employee. Even if the relationship between the worker and employer is called 'self-employed' it may not actually be so in law. Just because the worker pays tax/national insurance contributions as a self-employed person, it does not necessarily follow that s/he is self-employed.

An employee has a contract of employment, which is defined as a 'contract of service or apprenticeship'. A self-employed person has a contract for services.

I suspect there are many clients wrongly refused IIDB/REA because it has been decided that they are self employed when the economic reality test is that they are employees for benefit purposes. I also suspect that among advice workers there is a lot of misunderstanding/confusion on this issue - its to simple to say that because you are self empoyed for NI and Tax purposes therefore you cannot claim industrial injuries.

Thanks everyone for your advice. We went to the tribunal hearing and the appeal was allowed.