In United Kingdom law, the concept of wrongful dismissal refers exclusively to dismissal contrary to the contract of employment, which effectively means premature termination, either due to insufficient notice or lack of grounds. Although wrongful dismissal is usually associated with lack of notice sometimes it can also be caused by arbitrary dismissal where no notice was required but certain grounds were specified in the contract as being the only ones available but none existed. Definitions Wrongful dismissal does not terminate the contract - it is a repudiatory breach, i.e. one entitling the employee to consider himself no longer bound on the basis of the employer no longer considering itself bound. The employer's repudiatory breach (wrongful dismissal) forces the employee to accept it as he is prevented from earning from the employer and required to mitigate by working for someone else, thus terminating the contract. This does not follow contract law and is an invention by judges, disliked by others, designed to reflect the reality of employment, using the dual fictions that because the right to wages depends on the obligation to work, there is no right to wages if the employer tells the employee not to work (forgetting that the employer is not able to terminate the obligation to work other than in accordance with the contract) and that the employee has accepted the repudiation by not working for the employer even though he is willing and able. Otherwise the employee would be entitled to stay at home at the employer's request yet sue for unpaid wages as a debt. An employer is only entitled to dismiss an employee without notice: in the first month, if the contract says so, or if the employee conducts himself so as to undermine the trust and confidence such that the employer should no longer be required to retain the employee in his employment. The last example, trust and confidence, is commonly known as "gross misconduct", but employment law only distinguishes between misconduct that justifies dismissal and misconduct that does not. Conduct entitling the employer to terminate the contract is conduct indicating the employee no longer considers himself bound by it and so is technically accepting the termination caused by the employee. Gross misconduct is really just a vague list of offences that could most easily justify summary dismissal for a first offence. Dismissal for a reason contrary to statute or contrary to a