Hmmm...
His having agreed to resign is a problem - it's a bit quick to claim constructive dismissal.

But - and this might be useful for remaining employees to bear in mind - "...gross misconduct if any of us were caught sending an email that could cause offence" is a crock, for the simple reason that just about anything can cause offence; the criterion is simply too vague to be enforceable, I'd've thought. Add to that the fact that offensiveness is something imputed by the person offended: it's not an intrinsic quality. M sounds like he committed a schoolboy error, but, all the same, it's not egregious.

Here's the Scottish Enlightenment's finest, David Hume, in his Treatise of Human Nature:
"Take any action allow'd to be vicious: Wilful murder, for instance. Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existence, which you call vice. In which-ever way you take it, you find only certain passions, motives, volitions and thoughts. There is no other matter of fact in the case. The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object. You never can find it, till you turn your reflexion into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation, which arises in you, towards this action. Here is a matter of fact; but 'tis the object of feeling, not of reason. It lies in youself, not in the object. So that when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it."

Sunstitute "offensive" for "wilful murder", and there you go...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 19 Feb 2008, 12:38, Reply)