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It’s been said that the only people who like change are wet babies.
Yet what if your work conditions have deteriorated so badly that
you now see no choice but to quit?
Fortunately, courts have increasingly recognized this concept of
“constructive dismissal” whereby distressed employees are still
awarded “reasonable notice” damages despite fact they have not yet
been formally dismissed by their usually underhanded employers.
More specifically, “constructive dismissal” damages may be awarded
in circumstances where the employer - without acting explicitly to
terminate your employment - acts unilaterally to change employment
terms/conditions such that the employee is entitled to regard the
employer’s conduct as a termination, and so bring an action for
wrongful dismissal even though they have not yet been formally fired.
According to principles set forth in Rubel Bronze & Metal Co. v.
Vos, [1918] 1 K.B. 315:
Dismissal
may be effected by conduct as well as words.
A man may dismiss his servant if he refuses by word or conduct to
allow the servant to fulfil his contract of employment.
The refusal must of course be substantial in the sense that it is
not a mere repudiation of some minor rights of the servant or of
non-vital provisions of the contract of employment.
The question is ever one of degree.
If the conduct of the employer amounts to a basic refusal to
continue the servant on the agreed terms of the employment, then there
is at once a wrongful dismissal and a repudiation of the contract.
I see no distinction in such a case as the present between
repudiation by the defendants of their contractual obligations and “a
wrongful dismissal” in the ordinary sense of that phrase.
And so continues the expansion of “constructive dismissal” law to
include employer harassment, material changes in job description,
demotion, reduction in pay, and substantial change in geographic
location of the job.
In other words, if your employer tells you that he’s moving your
three-window office to a broom-closet in your company’s South American
subsidiary at one-third the pay - well, then you have yourself a pretty
clear-cut claim for constructive dismissal and all reasonable notice pay
consequences that flow. Unfortunately,
real-world scenarios are typically less clear-cut, on which basis
employees suffering material changes to their employment
terms/conditions are advised to seek immediate expert advice.
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