Intellectual Property Enterprise Court

Claim No: IP-2023-000087 - [2024] EWHC 2947 (IPEC)

Fecha: 21-Nov-2024

Partnership

Partnership

14.

There was an issue on the pleadings which was abandoned following Ms Laight’s closing speech which it is convenient to deal with first. In her Defence, which was professionally prepared, Ms Laight argued that she and Ms Thurgood had been in partnership in the dog grooming business operated by Ms Thurgood. This, she said, gave her some rights in any goodwill generated by that business. Ms Thurgood, on the other hand, said that Ms Laight had always been an independent contractor, and not a partner in the dog grooming business.

15.

At the conclusion of the trial, following Ms Laight’s closing speech in which she did not mention the partnership issue, I asked her if she still considered herself to have been a partner in Ms Thurgood’s dog grooming business, and she said that she did not. She had explained under cross-examination that she had received some early bad advice, and I took that reference to be to the professional advice that she should claim to have been a partner in the business, because such a claim was, on the facts before me, always hopeless.

16.

As the claim was withdrawn, I need say little about it, but it was abundantly clear to me that Ms Laight was not a partner in Ms Thurgood’s business. The misstep was likely triggered by the initial advertisement for the role, which was headed Self Employed Mobile Dog Grooming Partner. That of itself was not enough to establish a partnership at law, and was not, on Ms Thurgood’s evidence, aimed at doing so. Rather, Ms Thurgood said, it was to indicate the non-hierarchical structure of her business. Thereafter, whilst there was never a written agreement entered into between Ms Thurgood and Ms Laight:

Ms Laight made no capital contribution to the business;

ii)

Ms Laight was not a decision maker within the business, and was not consulted on decisions such as hiring a new dog groomer to join the business. She was told what to do by Ms Thurgood, Mr Bob Thurgood and Mr Jim Thurgood, and carried out the tasks assigned to her. There were no partners’ meetings;

iii)

Ms Laight was paid a fixed fee per groom (with additional fees for same-day re-bookings, and for bookings she generated);

iv)

Ms Laight did not receive any profit share from the business;

Ms Laight provided her own scissors and clippers (and paid for them to be sharpened) but was provided by Ms Thurgood with a mobile dog grooming van, petrol, dog shampoo, towels, muzzles and other fungibles for the dog grooming service;

vi)

there is nothing on the written record to suggest that Ms Laight considered herself to be a partner of the business until the Defence was filed, and plenty on the written record that indicates that she was not – for example, she responded to the initial job advertisement saying “I am extremely interested in the dog grooming job you have available”. She did not hold herself out as a partner in the business – the customers whose dogs she groomed considered her to be an employee; and

vii)

Ms Laight’s tax returns for the relevant period make no reference to her being in a partnership.

17.

I had the benefit of Ms Thurgood’s counsel’s written skeleton argument addressing the issue of partnership. Had it remained a live issue (or on the basis that matters go further), I would have had no hesitation at all in rejecting on the facts before me any notion that Ms Laight was a partner in Ms Thurgood’s business. The allegation was obviously hopeless, and should never have been pleaded.