Mutual Trust and Confidence

The implied term that underpins every employment contract. These cases show how quickly it can be broken, and how little it sometimes takes.

21 results
Employee-favourable 2004

A failure to make reasonable adjustments can also break your employment contract.

A failure to make reasonable adjustments 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.

Employee-favourable 1999

If your employer keeps failing to fix a problem, that failure can itself be a reason to leave.

If your employer fails to resolve a problem you have raised, and that failure continues, each day of inaction can add to the cumulative picture you rely on when you eventually resign.

Employee-favourable 2024

An employer cannot strip your rights by calling a meeting informal.

An employer cannot strip your rights by calling a meeting informal. You are entitled to know what a meeting is about before you attend it.

Thinking about resigning because of how you’ve been treated? Read this first.

Resigning can feel like the only way out, but it closes off routes you might still have open. Here's what the law actually requires before you hand in your notice.

If you have been suspended from work, here is what the law says

Being suspended from work is disorienting, especially if it came without warning. This guide explains what suspension actually means, your rights while it is in place, and the steps to take right now.

Employee-favourable 1995

Your employer can be liable for psychiatric injury caused by overwork.

Your employer owes you a duty of care that covers psychiatric injury from overwork. Once it knows you are at risk, it must act.

Employee-favourable 1997

Your contract contains a duty of trust and confidence that your employer cannot break.

Every employment contract contains an implied term that your employer will not act in ways designed to destroy the trust between you. They cannot opt out of it, and breaching it gives you legal remedies.

Employee-favourable 2002

Being humiliated at work can be enough to end the employment relationship.

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.

Employee-favourable 2024

A new manager can destroy a working relationship in a single morning.

If you resigned because of how you were treated at work, you may have a claim for constructive dismissal. The law does not require a single dramatic act. A pattern of deliberate, unreasonable behaviour can be enough.