Constructive dismissal; defined the contract test: fundamental breach, resignation in response, no delay.
Constructive dismissal; health and safety; trust and confidence. An employer is obliged to act reasonably in dealing with safety matters drawn to its attention, and a failure to do so may go to the root of the contract and amount to a repudiatory breach. Cited in Woods v WM Car Services as authority that breach of the implied term requires no intention to repudiate: the tribunal looks at the employer's conduct as a whole and asks whether its effect, judged reasonably and sensibly, is such that the employee cannot be expected to put up with it.
Constructive dismissal; trust and confidence; telling an employee 'you can't do the bloody job' was a fundamental breach.
Constructive dismissal; investigation; failure to investigate a grievance properly can be a constructive dismissal.
Constructive dismissal; trust and confidence; established the implied term of mutual trust and confidence. Breach does not require the employer to have intended any repudiation; the conduct is looked at as a whole and judged reasonably and sensibly.
Constructive dismissal; course of conduct; a series of minor breaches can culminate in a fundamental breach.
Constructive dismissal; lay-off; suspending an employee without pay where there is no contractual right to do so is a fundamental breach.
Constructive dismissal; vicarious liability; implied term of trust and confidence; acts of supervisors. The employee resigned after being severely reprimanded by her immediate supervisor in front of other staff. The EAT held that the ordinary tort tests of vicarious liability apply to a statutory constructive dismissal claim: where a supervisory employee is doing what he or she is employed to do and in the course of doing it behaves in a way which, if done by the employer, would be a fundamental breach of contract, the employer is bound by that misdeed irrespective of the supervisor's authority to dismiss.
Constructive dismissal; warnings; an unjustified final written warning can be a breach of trust and confidence.
Contract of employment; the House of Lords confirmed the implied term of mutual trust and confidence: an employer must not, without reasonable and proper cause, conduct itself in a manner calculated or likely to destroy or seriously damage the relationship of confidence and trust. Stigma damages are recoverable where the employer's corrupt conduct damages former employees' employment prospects and causes quantifiable, foreseeable loss.
Contract of employment; the House of Lords confirmed the implied term of mutual trust and confidence: an employer must not, without reasonable and proper cause, conduct itself in a manner calculated or likely to destroy or seriously damage the relationship of confidence and trust. Stigma damages are recoverable where the employer's corrupt conduct damages former employees' employment prospects and causes quantifiable, foreseeable loss.
Unfair dismissal; reasonable responses; reaffirmed that the tribunal must not substitute its own view for the employer's.
Constructive dismissal; trust and confidence; fundamental breach. The EAT held that any breach of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence is inevitably a fundamental breach of contract, there cannot be a minor or non-fundamental breach of that term. Once it is breached, the employee is entitled to treat the contract as repudiated.
Unfair dismissal; constructive; failure to deal with a grievance can be a fundamental breach.
Constructive dismissal; causation; the breach must play a part in the resignation, but need not be the sole cause.
Constructive dismissal; trust and confidence; corrects a transcription error that has been propagated for years. The implied term is that the employer will not, without reasonable and proper cause, conduct itself in a manner calculated OR likely to destroy or seriously damage the relationship of confidence and trust. The report of Malik v BCCI transposed this as 'calculated and likely', which would wrongly require both an intention to damage the relationship and a likelihood of doing so. The disjunctive form is correct: either limb suffices. Noted by HHJ Tayler in XX v YY.
Constructive dismissal; the range of reasonable responses test applies to the employer’s conduct in grievance handling.
Constructive dismissal; grievance; a defective grievance procedure does not automatically amount to a fundamental breach.
Constructive dismissal; the test for breach is objective; an employer cannot 'cure' a fundamental breach after it happens.
Constructive dismissal; affirmation; refusing to accept a breach and demanding performance affirms the contract.
Constructive dismissal; trust and confidence; the EAT rejected the submission that Tullett Prebon had changed the law so as to require a tribunal to make a specific finding on the employer's subjective intention. The Court of Appeal there was emphasising that only objective intention is relevant, ascertained by looking at all the circumstances. Woods and Malik remain intact: breach of the implied term requires no intention to repudiate.
Constructive dismissal; 'last straw'; a last straw act revives all previous breaches of contract.
Constructive dismissal; breach of trust; an employer's failure to pay wages is usually a fundamental breach.