Director's Behaviour Leads to Unfair Dismissal Claim

A woman has succeeded in her unfair dismissal claim after the behaviour of a director of the company she worked for led her to resign from her job (Hanson v Interaction Recruitment Specialists Ltd).

The woman had worked for her employer, a recruitment business, for 20 years. After it was acquired by the company, the director went to the woman's office to meet her and her colleagues. During that visit, he learned that she sometimes worked from home.

He visited the office again six days later. She arrived late because she had had a medical appointment. She claimed that she said 'good morning' to him three times but he ignored her. At his suggestion, they went into the meeting room, where she tried to show him evidence of her appointment on her phone, but he pushed it aside. He allegedly suggested that if she did not want to be there she should leave, and she replied that she would only leave if she were made redundant. Later that morning, without consulting her, he emailed two employees who reported to her, giving them a pay rise.

After securing another job offer, she resigned. She said that she had been made to feel undervalued. She asked to be put on garden leave because of the way she was being made to feel, which was causing her anxiety and sleepless nights. When the director stated that he was unhappy with her working from home, she took sick leave. However, her next two payslips failed to include sick pay. She brought Employment Tribunal (ET) proceedings claiming unfair dismissal and unauthorised deductions from wages.

Noting a number of inconsistencies in the director's evidence, the ET preferred the woman's account of what had happened. After learning that she sometimes worked from home, the director had clearly formed the impression that she left her colleagues in the office to do the work. Once she had mentioned redundancy, he essentially determined that she had no future with the company. The ET found that she understandably felt humiliated and unwanted.

The director's conduct, taken together, amounted to a fundamental breach of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence. She had resigned in response to the breach of contract and had been constructively unfairly dismissed.

Finding that she had been genuinely unwell, the ET upheld her claim of unauthorised deductions from wages, including car allowance but excluding bonuses and health insurance. Her claim of unlawful deductions from wages in respect of accrued holiday pay was also upheld. The amount of compensation due to her will be determined at a further hearing.