Ms Anderson of counsel For the v Respondent — 2021

Mr David Morris was employed by Currie & Brown UK Limited as the de facto head of its Southampton office under a contract dated 3 April 2008. The tribunal found that after Mr Brierley joined the business in September 2018, discussions about Mr Morris’s future led the respondent to begin recruiting a replacement in January 2019, before Mr Morris had resigned. The tribunal found that the respondent did not tell him that his proposal for an agreed departure was unacceptable and that it had already appointed Mr Webb before later telling Mr Morris that he would be relieved of all operational responsibility for Southampton and would report to Mr Webb.

The tribunal held that those steps were a fundamental breach of the express term of Mr Morris’s role and, alternatively, of the implied term of trust and confidence. It found that the respondent had no reasonable or proper cause for removing his operational responsibilities, appointing a replacement without his knowledge, and pressurising him to resign while the replacement process was already under way. Mr Morris resigned on 22 May 2019, and the tribunal found that his resignation was in response to those breaches and that he had not affirmed the contract before resigning or by working notice. The tribunal therefore treated the resignation as a dismissal under s.95(1)(c) ERA 1996 and found the dismissal unfair.

The respondent’s section 98(1)(b) argument, based on business continuity and risks said to arise from Mr Morris’s conduct, was rejected. The tribunal also found no contributory conduct for the purposes of s.123(6) or s.122(2) ERA 1996, and no adjustment under s.207A(2) of the TULR(C)A 1992 or the ACAS Code. It found, however, that there was a 50% chance that Mr Morris would have left the respondent’s employment after one year in any event. The remedy hearing was left to a further hearing.

The separate wrongful dismissal claim failed. The tribunal held that, at common law, giving notice amounted to affirmation of the contract, so the wrongful dismissal claim was dismissed.