Representing Yourself in Employment Proceedings is a Recipe for Muddle

Those who choose to represent themselves in employment proceedings, without the benefit of legal advice, often have enormous difficulty in getting their real complaints across. That was certainly so in the case of a woman who claimed to have been so badly treated by her employer that she was forced to resign.

The woman had been in her job for less than three months when she resigned. The fees her employer had paid to a recruitment agency when she was taken on – which came to £945 – were deducted from her final wages. Acting in person, she launched proceedings to recover that sum on the basis that the deduction was unlawful. Her claim was rejected by an Employment Tribunal (ET).

Upholding her appeal against that outcome, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) noted that it was her case that she was forced to resign by a manager’s constant criticism, bullying and nit-picking. Such allegations would, to an employment lawyer, have provided obvious grounds for claiming constructive dismissal.

Her allegations of mistreatment were contained in two letters attached to the claim form by which she commenced the proceedings. However, she made no mention of constructive dismissal either in the claim form itself or during the ET hearing. As a result, the ET did not address any such issue.

The EAT found that the ET should have appreciated from the letters that she was, in substance, asserting that she was constructively dismissed. That issue was before the ET and it should have considered whether she had resigned in response to a breach by the employer of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence, thus rendering the deduction of the recruitment fees improper.

The EAT sent the matter back to the same ET for consideration of the question of whether she was constructively dismissed. The employer accepted that, if she succeeded on that issue, the deducted sum would have to be repaid to her. Given the relatively small sum involved, the EAT urged both sides to carefully consider settlement of the dispute as an alternative to further litigation.