The Claimant had worked for the Respondent for more than 10 years. After events culminating in a particular incident, she said that she had had to walk out of her workplace due to stress. The Claimant brought a claim in the ET, as a litigant in person, stating on her ET1 that she "was unfairly dismissed (including constructive dismissal)". The ET concluded that the Claimant had resigned, on the basis that she had not argued the case for constructive dismissal, and so her claim failed. The Claimant appealed on issues including whether she had made the claim of constructive dismissal in her ET1 and, if not, was the ET obliged to consider that claim, or had the ET erred in law in not exploring with the Claimant whether she intended to abandon the constructive dismissal claim.

The EAT held that the factual allegations made by the Claimant in her ET1 did raise a potential constructive dismissal claim; however, the ET could not be criticised for not doing more than it did to investigate the Claimant's claim – it would have been impossible for the ET to investigate this issue without pressing the Claimant on the fundamental aspect of the way that she put her case, which was that she had not resigned.