hadji_stlpEAT0713
EAT UNFAIR DISMISSAL – Constructive dismissal
The Respondents were found to have been in fundamental breach of contract such as to entitle the Claimant to resign. The last such breach was in mid-February, at which point the Claimant was off work with stress. A month later at a meeting she was given three options – to return to her existing role, to consider vacancies within the Respondents or to resign. She did not decide between the options until at the end of May she wrote that she was starting a stress control course, hoped that the assistance she was getting would make a difference and would like to be sent details of internal vacancies. She then changed her mind and resigned on 8 June.
The Employment Tribunal found that she had affirmed the contract of employment. On appeal it was argued that the passage of time alone between the last breach of contract and the resignation would not, in law, amount to affirmation and that the communications between the parties prior to resignation did not support the ET’s conclusion which was perverse.
Held that the principles of affirmation were well established and their application to individual cases was for the Tribunal. Affirmation issues are fact sensitive. It was open to the Tribunal to infer affirmation from the sequence of events and in particular the communication at the end of May.
Jeffrey Burke QC J
[2013] UKEAT 0095 – 12 – 0207
Bailii
England and Wales
Employment
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.512151