What Is Constructive Dismissal?

When you sign an Employment Contract, both you and your employer must abide by the terms of that contract. You are agreeing to perform specific duties, at a specific location, for a specific amount of money.

Constructive dismissal occurs when the employer begins pushing the employee out of the door by breaching the terms of the contract. A reduction in pay, a demotion, changing your job location, or harassment and bullying, are all examples of conduct that show an express intention by the employer to force you, the employee, to quit.

You can no longer complete the job that you signed up for if the employer changes the terms without your consent. Once fundamental changes to the job have been forced on an employee, you might feel like the only option you have left is to quit. In the eyes of the law, quitting will be no different from being fired for no reason. You should be owed severance if you were constructively dismissed.

An example of constructive dismissal: someone is working as a supervisor in a grocery store for $25 per hour, in a location close to their home. The manager calls them in for a meeting and tells them that they will no longer be a supervisor, they will now be working as a cashier for $15 per hour, and they must move to a grocery store located across town.

That employee is being forced out of the door. If the employee quits in this scenario, a judge will see that they quit because they could not perform their job in the way that was agreed. A judge will likely treat this employee as if they have been fired for no reason and likely rule against the employer, making them pay them a severance to the employee.

It is important to note that if an employer forces these changes to the employment contract and the employee accepts the reduction in pay, the demotion, the harassment, etc., then the employee cannot take legal action against the employer.

The employee will be seen as accepting and consenting to their new role, and the employer will not be found liable to pay the proper amount of severance that the employee deserves.

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