An employee who resigns has generally not been terminated, and most claims that depend on an adverse employment action fail without one. Constructive discharge is the exception: where an employer makes working conditions so intolerable that a reasonable person in the employee’s position would feel compelled to resign, the resignation is treated as a termination.
The standard is objective and it is demanding. Dissatisfaction, a poor review, a difficult manager or an unwelcome reassignment will not usually meet it. Courts look for conditions a reasonable person could not be expected to endure — sustained harassment, a substantial demotion in pay or responsibility, or an explicit ultimatum to resign or be fired.
Two practical points recur. First, employees who resign without giving the employer notice of the conditions and an opportunity to correct them frequently lose, so the internal complaint made before the resignation often matters more than the resignation itself. Second, timing is evidence: a resignation immediately following a specific act reads very differently from one months later.