The texts kept coming. The director wrote: “how dare you come to my country and destroy my nearly 20 year old business…you ungrateful arrogant prick…”
The Authority noted that further messages containing personal insults and expletives were provided as evidence but did not need to be reproduced.
The worker resigned on May 1, 2025, telling the director his position had become “untenable.”
Brutalitees did not file any documents with the Authority and did not appear at the investigation meeting. The last correspondence the Authority received from the director was an email dismissing the proceedings as “a total waste of time” and stating the business had closed and there was no money.
The Authority found the employer’s conduct was “fundamentally repudiatory” of the employment relationship – in plain terms, so serious a breach that it destroyed the foundation of the working arrangement. Brutalitees had refused to engage with the worker’s concerns, leveraged his visa status to intimidate him, and withheld wages and holiday pay. The worker’s resignation, in those circumstances, amounted to a constructive dismissal – where the employer’s behaviour effectively forces the employee out, even though the employee is the one who formally resigns.