Edmondson v Oxfordshire Community Health NHS Trust

EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL 58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS At the Tribunal On 25 February 1998 Before

MR JUSTICE BELL : This is an appeal by Mrs Edmondson against the decision of an Industrial Tribunal held at Reading, promulgated on 5th February 1997.

Mrs Edmondson was a part-time health visitor with the respondent NHS Trust. On 14th February 1996 she resigned, and on 7th March 1996 she presented an Originating Application which the Industrial Tribunal, rightly, treated as a complaint of constructive and unfair dismissal from her employment.

The hearing of the application extended over four days, two in October and two in December 1996, and the unanimous decision of the Industrial Tribunal, now appealed against, was that Mrs Edmondson had resigned in circumstances where she was not constructively dismissed pursuant to the provisions of s.95(1)(c) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 . Her application was accordingly dismissed.

Subject to matters which are not relevant to this case, s.95(1)(c) of the Act provides that an employee is dismissed by her employer if the employee terminates the contract under which she is employed (with or without notice) in circumstances in which she is entitled to terminate it without notice by reason of the employer's conduct. Put shortly, the basis of Mrs Edmondson's appeal is that the Industrial Tribunal was perverse in not finding the Trust so in breach of her contract of employment as to entitle her to terminate it without notice.