실질적 해고 법리의 재구성 ― 강요된 퇴직 등에 대한 사용자 귀책 판단구조를 중심으로 ―

Although the Labor Standards Act strictly restricts dismissals, employment relationships are frequently terminated through voluntary resignation or mutual agreement. Korean jurisprudence has traditionally recognized a “de facto dismissal” where an employer coerces an unwilling employee into submitting a letter of resignation. However, existing precedents predominantly focus on direct coercion by the employer, centering the inquiry on defects in the employee's declaration of intention. Consequently, this framework fails to adequately address situations in which employees are compelled to resign due to workplace harassment, sexual harassment, or discrimination. This study conducts a comparative analysis of the U.S. doctrine of constructive discharge and proposes a two-stage reconstruction of the de facto dismissal doctrine in Korea. At the first stage, the existence of a de facto dismissal is determined by whether working conditions within the employer's sphere of control have deteriorated to a level intolerable for a reasonable employee. The employer bears a contractual duty of protection to ensure a safe and dignified work environment. Where the employer breaches this duty by neglecting workplace harassment, discrimination, or other causes of environmental deterioration, and thereby compels the employee's resignation, such termination constitutes a de facto dismissal attributable to the employer—regardless of whether the employee's declaration of intention to resign was genuinely voluntary. At the second stage, the inquiry turns to whether it is normatively justified to attribute the consequence of employment termination to the employer. To this end, this study proposes a three-stage analytical framework—comprising awareness (both actual and constructive), adequacy of measures taken, and causation—for assessing the breach of the employer's duty of protection. Under this structure, the decisive factor is not the existence of a defect in the employee's declaration of intention, but whether the employer fulfilled its duty of protection and whether the resignation constituted a “reasonable response” under the circumstances. This study further analyzes the specific obligations stipulated under Article 76-3 of the Labor Standards Act to concretize the criteria for recognizing de facto dismissal, and offers a principled interpretation of the limitation period for filing a claim for relief.