lochuakEAT20141
EAT Unfair Dismissal: Constructive Dismissal – An Employment Tribunal found a series of incidents in which the Claimant’s line manager had behaved in what could have been a demeaning and humiliating way towards her, which could have been repudiatory (depending on findings as to the particular context), but did not credit the Claimant’s evidence as to her reaction to some of these events, since it was exaggerated and unreal. It used words which suggested that it might have been looking for one reason only for her resignation, and said it was ‘more probable’ that it was to obtain work as a locum social worker at higher pay than it was a response to the Employment Tribunal of which she now complained.
The Employment Tribunal had not directed itself clearly as to the law it would be applying, nor showed that it appreciated that the test for constructive dismissal was satisfied if a repudiatory breach was in part the reason for the Claimant going. Since it appeared to have given some credit to some reaction by the Claimant to the most recent of the insults of which she complained, it may very well have applied the wrong approach (that shown to be erroneous in Meikle, Abbycars, and Wright v Ayrshire).
A submission that whether an employee had responded by resignation to a breach was to be assessed objectively, the test being whether an employee in such circumstances could reasonably have resigned in response to it, was rejected.
The case was remitted to the same Employment Tribunal for determination in the light of further submissions, but no further evidence.
Langstaff P J
[2014] UKEAT 0197 – 14 – 1111
Bailii
England and Wales
Employment
Updated: 10 November 2021; Ref: scu.541541