You Can't Fire Me! I Quit. I Mean, I Repudiate. Wait. What?

We tend to think of the end of an employment relationship as a clear binary – you either quit or you get fired. Sometimes the relationship ends, but it is not exactly clear how it ended. A recent Ontario decision,¹ reminds employers to look at all the circumstances leading up to the end of employment to decide whether someone resigned, abandoned or repudiated their employment. 

What happened?

The employee was an office manager for a small, family-run business. Her duties included scheduling, recording hours worked, and preparing payroll and cheques for the employer's CEO to sign. The employee's husband also worked for the employer.

The employee and the CEO had a dispute about an hours discrepancy involving the employee's husband. The employee and the CEO called and texted each other several times, but were unable to resolve the discrepancy. The employee texted the CEO she was "ready to leave and return" when her husband was paid what she believed were the