Mrs A Kay v Jean Ferguson on her own behalf and on behalf of all the other members of the executive committee of the Yorkshire Countrywomen’s Association at the relevant time — 2024

Mrs Kay worked for the Yorkshire Countrywomen’s Association as an office administrator from 16 July 2019. The Tribunal found she was an employee from the outset. Her claim for accrued holiday pay due on termination was resolved by consent, the claims for breach of contract relating to unpaid expenses and retained personal belongings were withdrawn during the hearing, and the parties agreed that if she succeeded on constructive dismissal she was entitled to £660 notice pay.

The Tribunal rejected most of the conduct alleged to have undermined trust and confidence, including the workload complaints, alleged bullying at the January and February 2023 committee meetings, the confidentiality request, the office lock change, the missing personnel file, and most of the grievance-handling criticism. It found, however, that four matters cumulatively damaged the relationship of trust and confidence: failure to pay SSP from the beginning of March 2023, copying Miss Ferguson’s 1 April 2023 email to the office inbox where Mr Rowbotham could read it, asking Mrs Kay in the 2 May 2023 letter to restate grievances she had already identified, and implying in that same letter that her use of cash to pay wages was improper.

On that basis the Tribunal held that the Committee constructively dismissed Mrs Kay on 15 May 2023. It had already accepted that the Respondent had no potentially fair reason under s.98(1) ERA 1996, so the dismissal was unfair. For remedy, the Tribunal assessed service from 16 July 2019 to 15 May 2023, age 48 and weekly pay of £165; it calculated a basic award of £742.50, a compensatory award of £6,785 before reduction, reduced the compensatory award by 30% to £4,749.50, and awarded £350 for loss of statutory rights. The final unfair dismissal award was £5,492, bringing the overall monetary awards to £6,746 including the holiday pay and notice pay.