Employment Appeals Board once again comes down on the side of proportionality in disciplinary matters when adjudicating on an appeal brought by a Dunne’s stores employee.
The employee was a sales assistant, whose duties included, inter alia, collecting trolleys in the car park. A customer had reported lost property from her shopping trolley in the car park. The goods had been purchased in another shop in the Donaghmede Shopping Centre but were in an unmarked bag.
The manager reviewed the CCTV footage and observed the employee remove the bag and place it in a store other than Dunnes Stores. The employee subsequently admitted retrieving them from the store and placing them in his locker.
The tribunal found that, on the balance of probabilities, the employee was not aware of the supermarket’s policy on lost property adding that it appeared that there was “no hard and fast rule” as regards lost property which wasn’t bought in Dunne’s Stores.
The tribunal found that the employee had “contributed significantly” to his own dismissal by his actions but found the sanctions disproportionate in the circumstances and awarded €25,000.