Cancer survivor forced to resign from school after tussles over work-from-home arrangements wins S$20,000

SINGAPORE: A woman who had been working for 17 years as an administrative assistant in an international school was forced to resign after she faced issues with her work-from-home arrangements following a battle with Stage 3 cancer.

In a judgment issued on Wednesday (Aug 12), an Employment Claims Tribunal (ECT) awarded the woman the maximum S$20,000 (US$15,616) it could give her.

If not for the limits, the woman would have been awarded S$30,480, made up of three months' pay along with S$15,240 for the harm caused to her.

The magistrate found that while she appeared to have voluntarily resigned, it was, in effect, a dismissal without just cause or excuse as she was forced to do so.

THE CASE

The parties were not named as is usual for ECT cases, which are heard in private.

The woman had been employed as an administrative assistant in the music department of an international school in Singapore from 2008.

In July 2024, she was diagnosed with stage 3 nasopharyngeal cancer, or cancer of the upper part of the throat situated directly behind the nose.

She went through months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy and was declared fit to return to work in late June 2025. Her monthly salary was S$5,080.

However, she was slower and weaker in her hands and needed rest and rehabilitation. She asked for accommodation by the school to assist her recovery and her transition back to work.

The woman felt that the school was "unwilling" to meet her where she was and this response took a toll on her health. She resigned within six months of her return.

She alleged that the school's unwillingness to reasonably accommodate her medical needs amounted to breaches of two terms in her employment contract: The duty to take reasonable care of the health and safety of employees, and the duty of mutual trust and confidence.

Magistrate Joel Tan noted that the employer has the prerogative to direct labour, but this exists "in relationship" with its responsibility to the employee to exercise it with care, and without destroying the trust and confidence upon which the employment relationship depends.

Mr Tan noted that the woman's cancer may have been in remission, but it is common knowledge that chemotherapy and radiotherapy can leave lasting side effects.

In the woman's case, she had joint pains, reduced strength and lingering fatigue. She was fit to return to work in that her primary functions of providing administrative and secretarial support for the day-to-day operations of the music department did not demand physical exertion beyond her limits.

Her doctor had recommended light duty work for her, since she was suffering from the side effects of treatment.

An occupational therapist at the Singapore Cancer Society's rehabilitation clinic also wrote a memo for her, noting that she was experiencing ongoing side effects that might affect her return to work.

She recommended that the woman avoid handwriting where typing was possible, refrain from carrying heavy items and take short breaks to manage her fatigue.

The woman returned to her role during summer vacation and worked from home during this period, an arrangement well-suited to her circumstances.

However on Jul 31, 2025, a human resource (HR) executive wrote an email to the woman to clarify if the light duty recommendation was subject to a fixed period, along with other questions.

When the school term resumed in early August 2025, the woman returned to campus and spoke to her line manager about her medical status and needs. He indicated he was content with letting her take short breaks as needed and to attend twice-weekly rehabilitative sessions.

The woman also asked if she could work from home two days a week, one day more than she had prior to her cancer diagnosis.

She said her manager agreed and she began working from home on two days a week from August 2025 to September 2025. The other three days she worked at the campus.

The school said the original work-from-home arrangement was because of safe distancing measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, once these measures eased and school activities resumed, work-from-home arrangements for educational support staff such as the woman were revoked.

It cited its flexible working arrangements policy which stated that educational support staff were ineligible for flexible work arrangements during term time.

MANAGER UNCOMFORTABLE WITH WFH ARRANGEMENT

Despite having earlier agreed that the woman could work from home for two days a week, her manager was apparently uncomfortable with the arrangement and raised his concerns with the principal and HR manager.

The manager told the HR manager that the woman's work-from-home arrangement was causing disruption to the department and he wanted to know what options were available to him.

The HR manager's view was that the woman was ineligible under the flexible working arrangements policy to work from home during term time, since she was in an educational support role.

The HR manager looked at the memos given from the woman's doctor and occupational therapist and found that they were insufficient, as they did not clearly define what the light duty recommendation entailed, or specify the duration of the arrangement, or the accommodations required.

The HR manager felt the memos said nothing about the woman being required to work from home or attend rehab sessions twice-weekly. This meant she had no medical basis for the accommodations she had been given.

The school principal testified that the woman's manager had told her in a meeting that the administrative running of the department was becoming difficult, because he could not plan for the days when the woman was not around.

The woman was the first point of contact for any student, parent or teacher entering the music department, and her physical presence at the front desk was essential.

During her absences, teachers were pulled away from their core responsibilities to cover admin tasks and assistance had to be sought from other departments.

The principal assessed that the arrangement was "simply not sustainable" from an operational perspective and decided to have a meeting with the woman and her manager.

The manager had his own conversations with the woman, first at a performance management meeting in September 2025.

According to the woman, he said he had no concerns about her administrative performance but asked when she saw herself returning full-time on campus.

This was the first time he had expressed any desire for her to be back at the campus five days a week, the woman said.

She told her manager that she was still experiencing side effects of her treatment and needed more time to recover, suggesting that her manager approach HR about whether someone could cover her temporarily on the days she worked from home. This had been done in other departments, said the woman.

The woman said she asked her manager directly what his concern was, and he said there was no one to replenish the photocopier paper when she was not in.

The woman was taken aback by this remark, as she said she was already distressed at being unable to carry a ream of paper since her return due to the tingling and numbness in her fingers. She could not understand why her colleagues could not simply replenish the paper themselves, even if it was not strictly their responsibility.

She became emotional and the meeting ended.

They had a second conversation in early October 2025, where the manager said he had raised a suggestion for temporary cover but had received no response. He said he intended to meet the principal to discuss working arrangements while the woman recovered.

THE MEETING WITH THE PRINCIPAL

On Oct 7, 2025, the woman met with her manager and the principal. 

She thought it was to discuss possible working arrangements, but at the outset, the principal told her she was required to work from campus from 7.45am to 4.45pm from Monday to Friday with immediate effect.

She was told that the role was ineligible for flexible working arrangements.

The woman was surprised by this and tried to ask if she could work from home at least one day a week, but was told there was no room for negotiation.

She was also informed that her medical documentation was inadequate and that she had not provided any "medical certificate" on the light duties recommended.

The woman was also directed to attend for a fit-for-work assessment at a private clinic arranged by the school, even though her doctor had already assessed her as fit to return to work.

She attended the appointment, despite her reluctance, later that month, and it proved to be in her favour. The doctor found her fit to return to work, but recommended that she should work a four-day week with one day from home for an initial two-month period.

During this time, she should not carry loads exceeding 4kg. The doctor also noted that the woman had fatigue issues requiring short rest periods after two to three hours of work and occasional naps at lunch break for 10 minutes.

HR AND THE SCHOOL-APPOINTED DOCTOR

Despite receiving these notes and recommendations, the school's HR executives did not accept them. Instead, one of them wrote back a few days later asking the doctor to reconsider them.

For example, they wrote asking to confirm if the work-from-home recommendations were "just a recommendation and not mandatory", saying that the woman was in a student-facing role and needed to be in school every day during the school term.

The doctor replied saying the arrangement was just for two months and that he would review her again.

However, the HR executive pressed again if the work-from-home day was necessary, after which the doctor yielded and withdrew his recommendation.

The HR executive then forwarded the exchange to the HR manager, saying the doctor had "concurred" that the option for work-from-home was not mandatory and practical.

After this, another meeting was held in November 2025 where the woman was told again that she could not work from home due to the nature of her role.

She was told that she could still leave work early twice a week for rehab, as was the case previously, but she could now only do so from 4pm onwards, and not earlier.

This meant the woman could attend only the 5pm rehab sessions, which were high in demand, and not the 4pm sessions.

The woman testified that the school's interventions had caused her stress and affected her physical, mental and emotional health.

She had difficulty sleeping and wept every day, developing severe headaches and debilitating anxiety. She also lost weight – 54kg by the end of her cancer treatment to 51.5kg by early November 2025, despite being on the road to recovery.

She met her own doctor, an oncologist, on Nov 7, 2025, for a review, explained her employer's demands for medical documentation and described her deteriorating condition.

Her doctor issued a second memo elaborating on her condition, saying she had manifested severe peripheral neuropathy of her hands that caused her to be unable to write or perform fine movements.

This was unlikely to improve and is probably permanent, said the oncologist.

However, when the magistrate asked the school about this memo, they again had issue with it saying light duties had been recommended without a definition or duration.

WOMAN RESIGNS BECAUSE OF POOR HEALTH

In the weeks after the second memo, the woman took extended periods of medical leave for her worsening health.

Her oncologist told her over the phone in early December 2025 that her reported symptoms were "very concerning" and that she needed to take time off work.

The woman said she then realised she had to resign to protect her health from the toll from her work environment and did so on Dec 19, 2025.

She wrote to the leadership team on her last day, expressing her concern and disappointment on the handling of her situation by the school leadership, recounting her long service and contributions to the school but saying that her recent experiences had left her feeling unsupported and unfairly treated, which distressed and disheartened her.

She questioned the motivations behind the handling of her employment and the school's commitment to supporting staff through medical difficulties.

The woman submitted a mediation request in February 2026 on the grounds that she had been dismissed without just cause or excuse. The case was later lodged with the ECT.

MAGISTRATE'S FINDINGS

The magistrate said that while the school professed a willingness to accommodate the woman's health, this could not be reconciled with its conduct.

In particular, HR's correspondence with the doctor was not a genuine attempt at clarification, but the questions were framed to steer the doctor towards a pre-determined conclusion, said Mr Tan.

He also pointed to correspondence from the HR manager to the woman, where he wrote that there was no obligation to make any changes to her role.

Mr Tan said the school's policy on medical documentation had distorted its entire understanding of its duty to take reasonable care, when the duty should have shaped the policy.

The magistrate found that the school had breached its duty of care to the woman.

The HR manager had concluded that the woman was fit for work without restrictions from a medical perspective, a conclusion contradicted by the documented medical advice of three healthcare professionals.

Mr Tan said the evidence painted a picture of a capable and conscientious employee in the claimant, who was recommended as a prime candidate for promotion shortly before her cancer diagnosis.

"It appeared to me, in fact, that the respondent's insistence on a particular form of medical documentation was nothing more than a pretext – a means of avoiding what it ought to have done, which was to reasonably investigate and consider the substance of the claimant's health needs with care and sensitivity," said Mr Tan.

He acknowledged the music department's operational concerns, but said an employer must exercise practical judgment.

"An ordinarily prudent employer, reasonably investigating and considering the claimant's health issues with care, would naturally take into account the operational requirements of the business," he said.

"But it would equally have regard to the claimant's medical status and limitations, the likely trajectory of her recovery, the types of accommodation that her condition might require, the risk to her health if accommodation were refused, the impact of any such arrangements on her colleagues, and whether suitable alternatives existed."

Mr Tan said none of this can be done without genuine engagement with the employee.

"An employer that takes no sensible steps to understand a matter of health and safety drawn to its attention can hardly expect to discharge its duty to reasonably consider and respond to it," he said.

However, he clarified that he was not suggesting that the engagement had to produce any particular outcome in this case.

A range of reasonable outcomes might have emerged from a discussion – such as one fixed work-from-home day rather than two, part-time cover at the front desk, or a trial arrangement subject to periodic review.

If consultation revealed that no work-from-home arrangement could be sustained during term time, they could have turned to other measures altogether, said Mr Tan.

However, the school "made no such attempt". Instead, it formed its views in haste and gave no room for negotiation and had no genuine willingness to consider or discuss the woman's concerns, said Mr Tan.

He added that the school had dismissed the woman's medical documentation and adopted a stance "that was at once sceptical of her needs and indifferent to their substance".

While the principal had raised the possibility of redeployment, it was not meaningfully explored and was presented instead as a problem for the woman alone to pursue with HR.

UNREASONABLE, INSENSITIVE

"In my judgment, this was an unreasonable and insensitive response to the matters of health the claimant had raised, and the respondent was, by this point, already in breach of its duty of care," said Mr Tan.

After this, the breach was deepened by the wilful rejection of the school-appointed doctor's recommendations and the doubling down of its untenable conclusion that the woman had failed to furnish adequate medical documentation. It then issued her a deadline to produce the documentation or be treated as a healthy employee.

"The irony was that, all the while, the respondent characterised this conduct as manifestations of its goodwill," said Mr Tan.

"It was, in truth, anything but. It was a course of conduct completely lacking in the sensitivity and care that common decency requires of any person dealing with another in vulnerability – let alone the standard that the law demands of an employer charged with the duty to take reasonable care of its employee's health and safety."

He said the school's conduct sent a consistent and unmistakable message to a long-serving employee of 17 years who had survived stage 3 cancer and returned to work – that her medical needs and vulnerabilities were not to be taken seriously, and that the school was not willing to discharge its duty to take reasonable care of her health and safety.

"An employer that persistently refuses to take reasonable care of a medically vulnerable employee strikes at something essential to the employment relationship itself," said Mr Tan.

"I was therefore satisfied that the respondent had not only breached its duty to take reasonable care of the claimant's health and safety, but that the breach was a fundamental one whose nature and consequences were so serious as to 'go to the root of the contract'."

He also found that the school breached its implied duty of mutual trust and confidence.

Mr Tan found that the woman's resignation was not voluntary, and that she was forced to resign as a result of the school's course of conduct beginning from the Oct 7 meeting.

The school's persistent failure of duty had placed the woman in an "unenviable dilemma" – she could remain employed and continue to expose herself to the risk of further deterioration of her health, or she could resign and protect it.

It was a constrained choice thrust upon her by the breach of the school's obligations, and her resignation accordingly amounted to a dismissal, said the magistrate.

However, he said it was entirely possible for an employee to resign involuntarily and be regarded as dismissed, but for the employer to have just cause or excuse for this dismissal. The two questions are distinct and must be addressed separately.

"An employee with a medical condition and needs may face such challenges, and hence the importance – for those around her, including colleagues and managers in the employing organisation – of not adding to that anguish by treating the employee as a problem, a burden, or an imposition to be swiftly resolved," he said.

"The right course is to treat her or him with appropriate care, sensitivity, and respect, by genuinely considering whether it is realistic and practicable for the employee to continue performing her or his duties satisfactorily despite her or his medical condition and needs."

At the hearing, the woman testified that she had made considerable progress in her recovery, no longer experiencing the same levels of fatigue and saying she felt she could do a full work week now.

She was still unemployed, choosing to focus on her recovery.

On top of the maximum S$20,000 awarded to the woman, the magistrate awarded her S$470 in costs and disbursements.

The principal had told the tribunal that the school culture was one in which "we want to look after our staff and support them".

However, the magistrate said the school's conduct revealed a "considerable distance" between its beliefs and its actions.

"That all of this should have ended as it did – certainly not in the warmth of the culture (the principal) described – is regrettable," said Mr Tan.

"It is a reminder that the obligation to look after one's employees with reasonable care is not merely an aspirational belief to be expressed in a written policy or in a courtroom submission.

"It must find expression in the small but consequential decisions that accumulate over the course of an employment relationship, even when the cost of doing so makes it tempting to treat that aspiration as nothing more than words."