E Saleh v Singletrack Systems Ltd

A tribunal deciding a constructive dismissal claim based on a course of conduct must consider the employer’s conduct cumulatively against the implied term of mutual trust and confidence. A failure expressly to set out that approach is not, by itself, an error where the judgment shows that the tribunal understood and decided the case on that basis. A case-management decision on disclosure or redactions will not be set aside as perverse where it was rationally open to the tribunal. The assessment remains fact-sensitive: the EAT upheld rejection of the cumulative claim on detailed findings that the employer’s conduct did not approach repudiatory breach.

Mr Saleh appealed against an Employment Tribunal judgment dismissing his claims against his former employer, Singletrack Systems Ltd, for unfair and wrongful constructive dismissal. After a six-day hearing, Employment Judge Povey rejected 14 complaints which Mr Saleh relied on as breaches of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence. The EAT allowed three grounds to proceed: refusal to order further disclosure about the grievance appeal report; the handling of redactions to a Slack message in the hearing bundle; and the allegation that the tribunal assessed the complaints individually rather than cumulatively. The appeal concerned whether the case-management decisions were perverse and whether the tribunal had erred in its assessment of the alleged course of conduct.

1. Appeal dismissed. The EAT rejected all three grounds of appeal.
2. The first-instance judge’s refusal to order further drafts of the grievance appeal report and related emails was not perverse. The earlier case-management order had, on its face, been complied with, so the application was for a new order rather than an attempt to override the earlier one. The judge’s reasons for proceeding on the evidence available were brief but made good sense. The EAT also saw no reasonable prospect that further disclosure would affect the clear findings that Mr Segal was the report’s sole author and that his conclusions were his own and open to him on the evidence.
3. The judge’s handling of the redacted Slack message was not perverse. Mr Saleh raised general concerns about redactions at the outset, the parties confirmed the next day that they had agreed the appropriate redactions, and no specific application to reopen the issue was made. The judge was entitled to proceed on that basis. The EAT added that the message could not have caused Mr Saleh’s resignation because he did not know of it when he resigned. It also doubted that the message had the probative value Mr Saleh attributed to it.
4. A constructive dismissal claim based on several acts or omissions requires consideration of the employer’s conduct as a whole against the implied term of mutual trust and confidence. Although the tribunal judge should have stated that approach expressly, the judgment showed that he understood and rejected the case based on the whole course of conduct. His detailed factual findings also showed that the conduct did not come close to behaviour calculated or likely to destroy or seriously damage the relationship of trust and confidence. The claim therefore failed on the facts.

1. Employment Appeal Tribunal: The appeal proceeded on three grounds following a Rule 3(10) hearing on 15 January 2025. The EAT dismissed the appeal.
2. Employment Tribunal: Employment Judge Povey dismissed Mr Saleh’s unfair and wrongful constructive dismissal claims after a six-day hearing. The judgment was sent to the parties on 4 January 2024.