Mr P O’Callaghan (Counsel) For the v Ms A. Niaz-Dickinson — 2019

The claimant worked as a checkout assistant at Tesco’s Teddington store from September 2001 and resigned on 10 December 2018. She alleged that her new manager, Ms Nlandu, had bullied her and that a series of events led her to resign. The tribunal found that most of the alleged incidents were not proved. It accepted only two material incidents: an early conversation about the claimant’s persistent lateness, and a 15 June 2018 discussion about personal hygiene after customer comments about smell. It rejected the allegations that Ms Nlandu said “you smell”, forced a form to be signed, rubbed the claimant’s face, made remarks about the claimant’s lips, or orchestrated bullying by other colleagues or customers.

Applying s.95(1)(c) ERA 1996 and the constructive dismissal authorities in Western Excavating, Waltham Forest v Omilaju, and Kaur v Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, the tribunal held that neither the timekeeping discussion nor the hygiene discussion amounted to a repudiatory breach of contract or a breach of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence. It found that Tesco was entitled to raise lateness and hygiene issues in the circumstances, and that the claimant’s reaction did not make those meetings objectively inappropriate or contractual breaches.

The tribunal also considered the letter of 3 December 2018 inviting the claimant to a further meeting about timekeeping. It accepted that this may have been the immediate prompt for the resignation, but found that the letter was not itself a breach of contract and was not part of a cumulative series of acts that objectively amounted to a repudiatory breach. The constructive unfair dismissal claim therefore failed. The wrongful dismissal claim also failed because the claimant resigned with immediate effect, refused to work her notice period, and the tribunal found that the respondent had not breached the contract.