To effect termination of a contract of employment, an employer must communicate to the employee by plain or unambiguous words or conduct that the contract is terminated; the general principles applicable to termination of an employment contract are equally applicable to termination of the employment relationship.

The date of dismissal for an employee who has been dismissed at the initiative of the employer does not take effect until they are aware that they have been dismissed or at least have had a reasonable opportunity to become aware.

For a casual employee with an established sequence of engagements, continuous service is broken only when the employer or employee makes it clear by words or actions that there will be no further engagements.

The legal question to be answered regarding whether employment was terminated at the employer's initiative is whether the employer's actions 'directly and consequentially' resulted in the termination of employment and whether the employee would have remained employed had the employer not taken the action.

In order to establish abandonment of employment, the respondent must demonstrate that the applicant had repudiated her contract of employment and demonstrated an intention to leave her job.

Where an employee's medical certificate has expired and the employer has not heard from them for a short period (three to four days), if the employee has been providing ongoing medical certificates and has no history of unexplained absences, it would be reasonable for the employer to make inquiries of the employee rather than assume abandonment.

Where an employee has notified their employer that they will be unable to attend work due to medical reasons, and the person is then terminated, they were found to have been terminated at the initiative of the employer. An argument that the employee had abandoned their employment by not attending as directed is rejected. Abandonment arises where an employee is absent without reasonable excuse or has failed to communicate with the employer to provide an excuse.

Generally, abandonment of employment arises in circumstances where an employee is absent from the workplace without reasonable excuse or had failed to communicate with the employer to provide an excuse for why they were absent.

Abandonment of employment requires demonstration of repudiation of contract and intention to leave.

It is difficult to see how the common law concept of repudiation has any work to do in relation to casual employees. At common law a casual employee's contract of employment ceases at the end of each engagement. An employer of a casual employee does not repudiate that contract when it fails to offer another shift.

Where casual employment is on a shift-by-shift basis under separate and distinct contracts with no firm advance commitment to continuing work, the employment relationship ends by effluxion of time at the conclusion of each engagement, not by dismissal at the initiative of the employer.

Abandonment of employment requires that the employee's conduct be such as to convey to a reasonable person in the situation of the employer a renunciation of the employment contract as a whole or the employee's fundamental obligations under it.