Ms L Bulloch v Represented by:10 Mr G Heron - Lay Representative South Lanarkshire Council — 2022

The claimant brought a complaint of constructive unfair dismissal. The hearing was restricted to liability only. The tribunal identified the issue as whether the respondent had, without reasonable and proper cause, acted in a way calculated or likely to destroy or seriously damage trust and confidence, whether the claimant had affirmed the contract, and whether she resigned in response to any breach. It applied the approach in Kaur, together with the principles in Western Excavating, Malik, Lewis and Omilaju.

The tribunal accepted that the claimant had raised a dignity at work complaint shortly before the fact find, but found no evidence linking that complaint to the investigation. It accepted the respondent’s evidence that the complaint was received on 31 January 2020 and that it was simply filed pending the outcome of the fact find. It also found that the disciplinary process was fair, that the allegations were open to MM on the evidence, and that the police notification was appropriate in the circumstances.

The principal event relied on as the final straw was the training session on 23 March 2021. The tribunal found that the cases discussed at the training were anonymised and that JS’s comments about reflective learning, the death of the service users, and the absence of evidence that staff involvement caused those deaths were true. It held that any sense of humiliation arose from the claimant’s wife disclosing the claimant’s involvement to the attendees, not from the respondent’s conduct. The tribunal therefore found no last straw, no cumulative repudiatory breach of contract, and no constructive dismissal. The unfair dismissal complaint was dismissed.