Employment law

Constructive dismissalHilton v Shiner Ltd (2001) IRLR 727An employee's main job was changed, following allegations of dishonesty, from one of dealing with customers' purchases, payments and other cash transactions to a new role in which he would no longer handle money.

A tribunal found that this did not amount to a repudiatory breach of contract justifying the employee in resigning and claiming constructive unfair dismissal.

However, the Employment Appeal Tribunal concluded that the tribunal had failed adequately to justify its conclusion.

Requiring an employee to cease doing what has been his principal job and to take up a new role will almost always be capable of being a repudiatory breach.

Whether in any one case the breach is repudiatory depends on its objective impact on the employee.

The reason why a repudiatory breach was committed is irrelevant.

However, the tribunal was right to hold that the employers were not in breach of the implied term of trust and confidence in removing cash-handling and cashiering duties from the employee because he was suspected of dishonesty.

To decide whether the implied term has been breached, two issues have to be determined.

The first is whether, ignoring their cause, there have been acts which are likely on their face seriously to damage or destroy the relationship of trust and confidence.

The second is whether there is a reasonable and proper cause for those acts.

By Martin Edwards, Mace & Jones, Liverpool