Employment law – even solicitors get it wrong sometimes!

Fiona Tsang was a solicitor at HRS Family Law Solicitors, working at their Dudley office. In 2020 she was told, on a Friday afternoon, that she was being moved to the Walsall office, where she should report the following Monday morning. This caused Ms Tsang issues with her school run, and she made it clear she wasn’t happy with the move. After the weekend, she returned to work in Walsall.

Tsang was then summarily dismissed for gross misconduct on grounds that she had failed to accept a lawful instruction from her employer, and had fundamentally breached her contract of employment.

The Tribunal found that Ms Tsang had clearly not acted in breach of her contract, and pointed to the fact that she had attended work on the Monday morning, albeit at the Walsall office. There had also, it was found, been a failure to consult. HRS were ordered to pay Ms Tsang the notice to which she would have been entitled had she not been summarily dismissed.