Court of Appeal
Published March 5, 2008
GAB Robins (UK) Ltd v Triggs

In a case of unfair constructive dismissal, where there was a gap in time between the employer’s repudiatory breach and the employee’s acceptance of it by resignation, damages for the loss caused by the repudiatory breach could not be claimed in unfair dismissal proceedings before an industrial tribunal and had to be sought in separate common law proceedings.

The Court of Appeal (Lord Justice Tuckey, Lord Justice Lawrence Collins, Lord Justice Rimer) so held on January 30, 2008, allowing an appeal by the employer, GAB Robins (UK) Ltd, from a decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal on June 13, 2007, upholding a decision of an employment tribunal on December 28, 2006, that compensation for unfair dismissal of the claimant, Gillian Triggs, by the employer should include loss prior to her resignation resulting from the employer’s repudiatory conduct.

LORD JUSTICE RIMER said the loss prior to the resignation did not flow from the dismissal but from the employer’s antecedent breaches of the duty of trust and confidence.

There was a boundary line between claims lying exclusively before an employment tribunal for compensation for unfair dismissal, and claims that did not do so and might entitle the employee to damages at common law for breach of an implied contractual term.

The damage caused by the manager’s conduct prior to March 2005 was damage in respect of which the employee already had an accrued cause of action at the date of her constructive dismissal.

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