Miss Claire Rogers v Motability — 2023

Miss Claire Rogers was employed by Motability as a Customer Care Manager and resigned with immediate effect on 18 April 2023 while a disciplinary process was ongoing. The process arose from email correspondence between her and a Complaints Case Manager, MS, about case manager tasks and draft Decision Records. The tribunal found that around 66 draft Decision Records had been sent by MS over about six months, that a sample of five or six final records matched the drafts, and that there was no written policy on reallocating work, although the claimant's line manager had not authorised staff to send work to MS.

The tribunal rejected the main procedural criticisms advanced by the claimant. It held that the 9 March 2023 investigation invitation and the later disciplinary invitation sufficiently identified the subject matter of the concern, namely the emails and case management ownership. It accepted, however, that there were two procedural flaws: the claimant was not sent the underlying interview evidence from the earlier investigation, and MS was not interviewed during the investigation or disciplinary process. The tribunal treated those matters as omissions of possible mitigation material rather than material likely to exculpate the claimant.

Applying the implied term of trust and confidence and the objective test for constructive dismissal, the tribunal held that those two flaws, taken alone or together, did not amount to conduct calculated or likely to destroy or seriously damage trust and confidence. It also rejected the claimant's allegations that the hearing was conducted aggressively, that the respondent had given an unfair indication of outcome, or that proper support had been withheld after she reported work-related stress. The tribunal concluded that the claimant resigned before any disciplinary outcome was communicated, that she was not dismissed by the respondent, and that the unfair constructive dismissal complaint was dismissed.