Mr P Gorasia, Counsel For the v Respondent — 2022

The Claimant, a Senior Lecturer in Footwear, alleged that her working relationship with her line manager, Ms Dean, deteriorated from 2019 and that a series of events, together with the handling of her grievance and appeal, amounted to a fundamental breach of trust and confidence. The tribunal accepted the Claimant as a credible witness overall, noted that Ms Dean did not give evidence, and found that the contemporaneous documents did not fully support every aspect of the Claimant's perception, but did support a worsening relationship over time.

The tribunal found that Ms Dean acted arbitrarily and unreasonably in challenging the Claimant's long-standing Friday working-from-home arrangement in June and August 2019, and that the Claimant was unnecessarily pushed into making a flexible working request. It also found that the allocation of the Contextual Studies teaching load in summer 2019, without adequate support, left the Claimant overworked and stressed. In relation to the meeting on 25 February 2020, the tribunal accepted that Ms Dean was not receptive to the Claimant's concerns, that the Claimant became tearful, and that Ms Dean's response was cold and indifferent.

The tribunal further criticised the Respondent's grievance and appeal process. It held that Mr Powis' grievance investigation and Mr Hall's appeal decision were both too superficial and failed to engage properly with the key issues, including the working arrangements dispute, the Contextual Studies allocation, and the 25 February 2020 meeting. Applying the implied term of trust and confidence and the constructive dismissal authorities it cited, the tribunal concluded that these matters, taken together, entitled the Claimant to resign and amounted to dismissal for the purposes of s.95(1)(c) ERA 1996. The unfair dismissal claim therefore succeeded, and the case was listed for a remedy hearing.