Being humiliated at work can be enough to end the employment relationship.
“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... claim upheld. Any breach 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... is automatically repudiatory.”
If you were publicly humiliated, persistently undermined, or treated in a way that destroyed the working relationship, you may be entitled to resign and claim constructive dismissal. There is no minimum level of severity required.
- The implied term of mutual trust and confidence is in every employment contract. Any breach of it, including a single serious incident, entitles you to treat the contract as ended.
- A pattern of unreasonable behaviour over time can also amount to a breach, even where individual incidents seemed minor. The cumulative effect is what matters.
- Timing is critical in constructive dismissal claims. Take advice before you resign. Continuing to work for a significant period after the breach can affect your ability to bring a claim.
Should I resign? A quick check
A quick three-question check to work out whether your situation is about resigning, an unfair dismissal, or reduced compensation, and which guide to read next.
Open tool →The situation
A manager reprimanded an employee in front of her colleagues. We do not know the full context of what was said. What we know is that it was public, it was directed at her, and it was the kind of thing that makes the people around you go quiet. She resigned and brought a claim for constructive unfair dismissalA legal claim you can bring if your employer dismissed you without a fair reason or without following a fair process. You normally need two years of continuous employment to qualify, though some dismi.... The employer's position was that a single dressing-down did not amount to a serious enough breach to end the employment relationship.
What the tribunal found
The Employment Appeal Tribunal held in Morrow v Safeway Stores plc [2002] IRLR 9 that this argument missed the point. Employment contracts contain an 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... that neither party will act in a way calculated or likely to destroy mutual trust and confidence. That term is not a spectrum. There is no threshold of severity that must be crossed before a breach of it matters. Any breach of the implied term is automatically a repudiatory breachA breach of contract so serious that it entitles the other party to treat the contract as ended. In employment law, if your employer commits a repudiatory breach you must resign promptly or you risk b...<breach of contractWhen one party to an employment contract fails to comply with one of its terms without a lawful reason. Your employer breaching a significant term of your contract can entitle you to resign and claim ..., which means it goes to the root of the relationship and entitles the employee to treat the contract as terminated.
Morrow v Safeway Stores plc. [2002] IRLR 9. Employment Appeal Tribunal. 2002.