They resigned. Now they say you forced them out.

A constructive dismissal claim says that the employee resigned because your business breached the contract fundamentally enough to entitle them to walk away. There is no dismissal letter to defend, no disciplinary outcome to justify. Instead the claim is assembled from events: a demotion in all but name, unpaid or altered pay, a grievance that went nowhere, a manager whose behaviour was tolerated for too long, or a series of smaller incidents pleaded together as a course of conduct.

That structure cuts both ways. The claimant has to prove the breach, prove they resigned in response to it, and prove they did not delay so long that they affirmed the contract. Plenty of these claims fail on one of those three points. But they fail on the evidence, which means the defence is won or lost in your files: the grievance record, the notes of the meeting nobody wrote up properly, and the resignation letter itself.

Where these claims usually break down

A specialist will test the claim against each element before deciding whether to defend, negotiate, or do both:

• Was there a fundamental breach at all, or a management decision the contract permitted?
• Did the employee resign because of that breach, or for another reason such as a new job already lined up?
• How long did they wait? Working on for months without protest can amount to affirming the contract
• Was a grievance raised, and did the business respond in line with the ACAS Code and its own policy?
• Is the resignation letter consistent with the case now being pleaded, or has the account changed?
• Is discrimination or whistleblowing pleaded alongside it, which removes the service requirement and the award cap?

Why the paperwork decides it

Constructive dismissal cases are reconstructed months later from documents. Where a grievance was investigated properly, an outcome letter was sent, and the decision-maker recorded their reasoning, the claim usually looks thin. Where the file is empty, a tribunal is left with two competing accounts and a claimant who resigned, which is a far less comfortable position for the respondent.

The other recurring problem is inconsistency. A resignation letter citing workload, followed by a claim about a manager's conduct, invites cross-examination. So does a business that gives one explanation in the grievance outcome and another in the ET3. A specialist reads the whole file first, settles on a single defensible account, and pleads that.

Where the claim is strong, the same early assessment tells you so. Knowing in week one that a case is worth settling, and roughly what it is worth, is generally cheaper than discovering it during witness preparation.

How MatchMySolicitor helps

We are a referral service, not a law firm. You tell us about the claim once, and we match it to a firm whose practice is genuinely respondent-side employment work rather than general litigation with an employment sideline.

Every firm on the panel is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Your details go to one matched firm, never several, and the first conversation is free with no obligation to instruct. Many panel firms offer fixed-fee packages for the response and early stages, and if you hold legal expenses insurance we can match you with firms that work with your policy.

Tell us about the situation in a two-minute form. No documents needed yet.

We match you with a respondent-side specialist, same day where a deadline is urgent.

The solicitor contacts you within 24 hours for a free initial assessment and your options.

1.Tell us about the situation in a two-minute form. No documents needed yet.

2.We match you with a respondent-side specialist, same day where a deadline is urgent.

3.The solicitor contacts you within 24 hours for a free initial assessment and your options.