A Rupowal v Kenard Engineering Company Limited — 2021

The Claimant worked for the Respondent from 13 March 2018, carrying out payroll and HR functions. In an email sent in the early hours of 14 February 2020 she raised concerns about workload, lack of pay progression and recognition, and concluded that she felt it was time to move on and asked the Respondent to regard the email as her notice of resignation if she did not hear formally about pay. The tribunal accepted her evidence that she had not been looking for another job before sending the email, but found that the wording of the email was an offer of resignation in response to the pay issue.

After Ms Gordon replied that she understood the email as a resignation and invited the Claimant to a meeting, the Claimant attended a meeting on 17 February 2020 with Mr Booth-Adams and Ms Gordon. The tribunal found that the parties understood at that meeting that the Claimant had resigned and would work a month’s notice. Mr Booth-Adams then formally accepted the resignation on 18 February 2020. When the Claimant later said that she had not intended to resign and asked for reinstatement, the Respondent declined to withdraw the acceptance of resignation, and employment ended on 12 March 2020.

The tribunal refused the Claimant’s applications to amend her case to include detriment/leave claims under ss.44 and 47C ERA 1996 and disability discrimination. It held that those applications were raised late, lacked sufficient detail, were significantly out of time, and would cause significant prejudice to the Respondent. On the pleaded unfair dismissal claim, the tribunal found there was no dismissal by the Respondent under s.95 ERA 1996 because the Claimant had resigned. It also found that there were no references to misconduct in the correspondence or meeting notes, so the Claimant had not shown that she was dismissed for misconduct.