Mr Foster (Friend). For the v Respondent — 2020

The claimant worked for Generator Power Ltd from 9 October 2014, based at the Hitchin depot, and later became lead engineer. In June 2018 his direct line manager changed to Mr Allport. The claimant said management had made his position untenable and relied on a breach of the implied term of trust and confidence. The respondent denied that any repudiatory breach occurred.

The tribunal rejected a number of the claimant's factual assertions. It found issues with his reliability and said he had exaggerated matters, including his evidence that he had effectively been working 24/7 during the summer of 2018. On the documentary evidence, the tribunal found he was on-call only about six days between 24 June 2018 and 21 September 2018, with the rest covered by colleagues. It also found there was no proof that Mr Allport had been aggressive at the first meeting, said he would not have employed the claimant, or had been openly criticising him as alleged.

The tribunal accepted that the respondent had service-level obligations and that there were staff shortages, recruitment delays, and periods of heavy work. It found Mr Allport's request that the claimant reduce unnecessary overtime was not unreasonable, particularly because the claimant had been signed off with work-related stress and exhaustion. It also found the alleged promise of a pay rise had not been put to the witnesses and that the later pay error was administrative rather than deliberate. The tribunal noted that the claimant resigned on two weeks' notice and thanked everyone at the company, which it said was inconsistent with a case that management had forced him out.

Applying the constructive dismissal authorities, the tribunal referred to Western Excavating (ECC) Ltd v Sharp and Malik v BCCI, and stated that the question was whether there had been a significant or repudiatory breach judged objectively. It concluded that the conduct alleged by the claimant had not been proved and, in any event, was not sufficient to meet that threshold. The tribunal therefore held there had been no repudiatory breach of contract and dismissed the constructive dismissal claim.