Smurfit Kappa has been ordered to pay €17,000 to a staff member it unfairly dismissed arising from alleged unauthorised absences connected to the man serving on a jury panel for a high-profile criminal trial.
In the case, a subsidiary of the multi-national packaging firm, Smurfit Kappa Ireland Ltd sacked Jonathan Hanlon after unauthorised absences arising from the man being called to jury service in February 2014.
Mr Hanlon sued for unfair dismissal and according to the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT), the decision to sack Mr Hanlon "was misplaced, harsh and disproportionate".
Mr Hanlon was called to be on a jury panel for jury selection for a high-profile trial at the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin in February 2014.
The work arrangement at Smurfit Kappa in relation to jury service was that if Mr Hanlon was not required for jury service or finished early on any given day he was to return to work.
The EAT states however that although Mr Hanlon was not required to sit on a jury for any of those days, he failed to attend work on some of them.
Investigation
The firm launched an investigation into Mr Hanlon’s unauthorised absence in the first week in February and the Courts Service told the firm that Mr Hanlon was not selected for jury duty between Monday and Thursda, was discharged on Thursday and was not required to attend at all on Friday.
Smurfit Kappa found that there was no record of Mr Hanlon attending work on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday and had attended work for part of his shift on Monday and Tuesday.
The firm dismissed Mr Hanlon on the grounds that he had been untruthful and evasive throughout the investigative process about his absences on February 6th and 7th.
A witness for the firm told the EAT that the jury summons to Mr Hanlon was somewhat unclear and had the potential to cause confusion.
Employed as a general operative since 2007, Mr Hanlon maintained that throughout the process, he neither lied nor was evasive to his employer about those disputed absences.
It certainly was not his intention to defraud or financially gain from those absences and offered to repay all unearned money.
‘Daunting’
In its determination, the Tribunal stated that “it is mindful that the empanelling of potential jurors for trials in the Circuit Criminal Courts can be a daunting experience”.
The EAT stated that this can be especially so for members of the public who are undergoing this process for the first time and that orders from the court as to whether members should remain in the precincts of the courts or where a jury is absent while legal argument is taking place can be confusing.
It stated: “This is all the more confusing where a high-profile trial is taking place as appears to have occurred in this case.”
The EAT found that in the case, Smurfit Kappa was as consistent in its belief that the Mr Hanlon was untruthful in his account as much as Mr Hanlon was consistent in his contention that he did not knowingly and deliberately mislead the company in gaining from his unexplained absences.
