Sandhu v Jan de Rijk Transport Ltd: [2007] EWCA Civ 430

CA: Pill, Wall and Maurice Kay LJJ: 10 May 2007

The claimant, who was employed by the respondent employer as an operations manager, was told to attend a meeting with members of the employer's senior management without being informed what the meeting was going to be about. The employer's managing director began the meeting by telling the claimant that he was going to be dismissed for reasons of misconduct. The majority of the rest of the meeting was spent negotiating the terms on which the claimant would leave his employment. At the end of the meeting the claimant and the managing director signed a letter which began "We hereby agree that we terminate your contract" and which went on to set out the terms of the claimant's departure, including a three-month additional payment on top of his contractual notice period and the retention of his company car and mobile phone for a month longer than his contractual notice period. The claimant brought a complaint of unfair dismissal. The employment tribunal dismissed the claim, finding that, although the meeting had started off as a dismissal, the claimant had in fact left his employment because of the favourable terms that he had negotiated and that therefore he had not been dismissed but had resigned. The Employment Appeal Tribunal dismissed an appeal by the claimant.

The claimant appealed.

The Court of Appeal held:
Resignation implied some form of negotiation and discussion and predicated a result which was a genuine choice on the part of the employee. Since the claimant had been given no warning that the purpose of the meeting was to dismiss him, had received no advice and had no time to reflect, the situation had been the very antithesis of free, unpressurised negotiation, and the only permissible conclusion that the tribunal could have reached, had it properly directed itself as to the law, was that the claimant had been dismissed.

The appeal was allowed.

Appearances: Simon J Brown (Amanda Capon, Southampton); Ghazan Mahmood (Peninsula Business Services Ltd, Manchester) for the employer.