Thread: Constructive Dismissal

Does anyone know what this is, examples of and what they went through, and if so how did you deal with it

Yes, yes, yes, and yes - as an employer.... any use?

cheers mate most helpful

Constructive dismissal occurs where, although it is the employee who apprears to terminate the employment by walking out, it can be said that the real reason for termination was in some way the prior conduct of the employer, it is necessaryin order to avoid the employer being able to force or goad the emplyee to leave his emplyment and then say that the employee in fact resigned and so was not dismisssed. When it is established, it means that for statutory purposes the contract is terminated by the employer and not the employee.

Lord Denning in Western Excavating (EEC) Ltd v Sharp [1978] ICR 221 describes it thus:

Lord Denning MR: "If the employer is gulty of conduct which is a significant breach going to the root of the contract [of employment], or which shows that the employer no longer intends to be bound by one or more of the essential terms of the contract, the the employee is entitled to treat himself as discharged from any further performance. If he does so, then he terminates the contract by reason of the employer's conduct. He is constructively dismissed. The employee is entitled in those circumstances to leave at the instant without giving notice at all, or, alternatively, he may give notice and say that he is leaving at the end of the notice. But the conduct must, in either case be sufficiently serious to entitle him to leave at once."

The tribunal is herefore looking at the conduct of the employer.

Certain examples might be fairly obvious such as a refusal to pay wages, an unjustified demotion or suspension, failure to follow a contractually binding disciplinary procedure, a unilateral alteration of job contract without prior contractual authority, or an insistence upon an unlawful or illegal order or the imposition of a penalty disproportionate to the offence.

There are many examples that extend beyond the breach of an express contractual term and into terms that are emplied by law into contracts of employment, such as, for example, the implied condition placed upon an employer to treat an employer with trust and respect.

I trust this adddresses your question.

thanks for the info, I have dug around on the internet and it comes up with more or less the same, however I wanted to find as well any experinces additional to the standard blurb.

Am I going through this process, not sure to be honest, but something does smell strange or fishy and its not the contents of my trousers?

but thanks all the same

Do tell?

Perhaps you should go on holiday overseas so you aren't here when your offices burn down?

Didn't want my help then?