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Employers require more than a disagreement or impasse to prove an employee has repudiated their contract, a workplace lawyer says.

In a new HR Daily Premium Q&A on repudiation of employment, HR Law practice group leader Kristin Duff says it was not "surprising" that the Fair Work Commission found a termination occurred at the employer's initiative, not the employee's, and that he could therefore proceed with a general protections claim.

The parties had reached an impasse over the employee's work-from-home request. He had refused to attend the office on numerous occasions, and the employer formed the view that he didn't intend to honour his contract.

But Duff notes that, crucially, "there was no evidence that the employee had actually refused to perform his job, or refused to return to the workplace indefinitely"...