actual (with notice or intention) or constructive (by fundamental breach). It may be fair or unfair under statute. It can be absolutely any combination of these. Accordingly, discrimination, wrongful dismissal and constructive dismissal are best dealt with separately. This article addresses the statutory concept of fairness. Wrongful dismissal: in particular, a termination by the employer in breach of the employee's contract of employment (in other words a dismissal without notice, where the employer is obliged to give notice) is described as "wrongful dismissal", and not as unfair dismissal. Discrimination: Where an employee has grounds to believe that he or she has been discriminated against in being dismissed, the Equality Act 2010 may apply. (The Equality Act 2010 is a consolidating reform which repeals and replaces the Race Relations Act 1976, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, the Equal Pay Act 1970 and the Sex Discrimination Act 1975). Constructive dismissal: Where the employee resigns or terminates their contract (without notice) due to some action on the part of the employer which would entitle the employee to terminate without notice (whether or not the employee actually gives notice), this is known as constructive dismissal. The normal circumstances in which an employee would be so entitled are in cases of a "fundamental breach of contract" (also known as a "repudiatory breach of contract") by the employer. Substantive fairness Assuming the employee has proven dismissal, the first stage is to establish what was the reason for dismissal, e.g. was it a potentially fair reason or an automatically unfair reason. The burden of proof for this is on the employer. If the employer pleads a potentially fair reason, the burden is on him to prove it. As mentioned above, it would have to be capability or qualifications, conduct, redundancy or statutory requirements or "some other substantial reason". The second stage is to establish whether the dismissal was reasonable, and that means whether the fair reason was sufficient to be also judged as reasonable. Even if the employer proves a fair reason, it often falls over on procedure when the tribunal looks at whether the decision was reasonable. To be unreasonable though, the employer's conduct would have to be outside the band of reasonable responses of any reasonable employer. Roughly speaking, the conduct is reasonable if some decent employers would have handled it similarly, but unreasonable if no reasonable employer would have handled it the same or