## Facts

- June Phyllis Sime worked as an Executive Assistant at Wye College (later part of Imperial College London) and reported to Professor Waage, head of department.
- The Employment Tribunal found poor working relations, attributing difficulties both to the professor’s management style and to issues caused by Sime.
- Colleagues raised concerns about Sime’s discretion, including discussing information suggesting a drug prescription related to the professor.
- The professor wrote a private note for his own use criticizing Sime’s conduct and suitability; the note was left on his desk among papers.
- Sime found and read the note, became distressed, and went off sick.
- After learning Sime had seen the note, the professor apologized and asked her to return; the employer also attempted through management/HR to secure her return.
- Sime did not return and later indicated she would not do so, claiming constructive unfair dismissal based on an alleged fundamental breach of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence.

## Issues

1. Whether an Employment Tribunal may find a breach of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence yet treat that breach as non-repudiatory for constructive dismissal purposes.
2. What role an employer’s apology and remedial efforts play in assessing repudiation, affirmation, or loss of the right to resign in response to a breach.
3. Whether the tribunal’s decision dismissing the constructive dismissal claim applied the correct legal test and should stand.

## Decision

- The Employment Appeal Tribunal allowed the appeal in part.
- It held the tribunal erred in law by finding a breach of mutual trust and confidence but concluding the breach was not repudiatory.
- It ruled that, if conduct amounts to a breach of the implied term on the established test (likely to destroy or seriously damage trust and confidence), the breach is necessarily repudiatory.
- The case was remitted to the Employment Tribunal for further findings and reconsideration under the correct legal approach.
- The EAT did not substitute a finding of constructive dismissal; it required reconsideration, including questions of affirmation and timing.

## Legal Principles

- The implied term of mutual trust and confidence is breached where the employer’s conduct is calculated or likely to destroy or seriously damage the employment relationship.
- A breach meeting that threshold is, by its nature, a repudiatory breach capable of grounding constructive dismissal; it cannot be reclassified as “non-repudiatory” once established.
- Post-breach steps (including apologies and efforts to repair relations) may be relevant to whether the employee affirmed the contract or waived reliance on the breach, and may inform whether a breach occurred on the facts, but they do not downgrade the legal character of a breach that satisfies the trust-and-confidence test.
- Where a tribunal applies an inconsistent or legally incorrect framework to repudiation and constructive dismissal, remittal for reconsideration is appropriate.

## Conclusion

The EAT held that an established breach of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence is necessarily repudiatory for constructive dismissal analysis, and remitted the matter for the Employment Tribunal to reconsider breach, affirmation, and dismissal applying that rule.


Sime v. Imperial Coll. London, UKEAT 0875/04/CK (Emp. App. Trib. 2005)