A failure to make reasonable adjustments can also break your employment contract.
“Court of Appeal upheld both the disability discrimination and constructive dismissalWhen your employer's behaviour is so serious that you feel you have no choice but to resign, the law may treat that resignation as a dismissal. The most common basis is a fundamental breach of the imp... claims.”
A failure to make reasonable adjustmentsChanges an employer must make under the Equality Act 2010 for a disabled employee, where without them the employee would be at a substantial disadvantage compared to non-disabled colleagues. What coun... for a disability can breach both the Equality Act and your employment contract, giving you a potential discrimination claim and a constructive dismissal claim at the same time.
- Your resignation does not have to be caused exclusively by the employer's breach; if it was a significant factor alongside the impact of your condition, a constructive dismissal claim can still succeed.
- Document all requests for reasonable adjustments and the responses received; this is the evidence that underpins both types of claim.
- Take advice before resigning if you are in this situation, as the two routes have different time limits and different remedies.
The situation
A teacher with a visual impairment was entitled to have certain reasonable adjustments made to enable her to continue working. Her employer failed to make them. As a result, she could no longer perform her role and was forced to retire on ill health grounds. She claimed both disability discrimination and constructive dismissal.
What the court found
The Court of Appeal upheld both claims. The failure to make reasonable adjustments was itself a breach of the implied termA term that forms part of your employment contract even though it is not written down. The duty of mutual trust and confidence is the most important implied term, but others include the duty to pay wa... of mutual trust and confidenceAn implied term in every employment contract that employer and employee will not, without reasonable cause, behave in a way that destroys or seriously damages the working relationship. A serious breac.... That breach entitled her to resign and claim constructive dismissal.
The court also confirmed that the cause of the resignation did not need to be exclusively the employer's breach. It was enough that the breach was a significant cause. An employee who resigns partly because of failing health and partly because of the employer's failure to support them does not lose their constructive dismissal claim.
Nottinghamshire County Council v Meikle. [2004] EWCA Civ 859; [2004] IRLR 703. Court of Appeal. 2004.