A frail piano tuner was left with a fractured wrist, suspected broken ribs and bruising to his chest after being attacked by a younger work colleague, the Employment Appeals Tribunal has heard.
The tribunal heard details of the violent assault at a hearing in Dublin into the unfair dismissal claim brought by Kayetan Mlynarski against John Holland and Henry Gillanders, trading as Pianos Plus.
The Dublin-based company is a leading stockist of new and used pianos and runs a number of piano-related services.
The tribunal found Mr Mlynarski, a piano mover, was involved in a verbal dispute with the piano tuner which escalated into a violent row.
It accepted the tuner’s evidence that he had found his overtime sheets had been moved from where they were left in the company accountant’s office. He suspected Mr Mlynarski had moved the sheets and confronted him verbally, but the tone of the conversation turned aggressive.
The tuner took “the correct course” and asked the piano mover to go upstairs to the office to discuss the matter. The pair walked to the lift but Mr Mlynarski invited the tuner to go to the basement instead and the tribunal took the view that this was for the purpose of threatening violence.
When the tuner did not go with him, the piano mover “immediately launched a wholly unjustified physical attack” on him which resulted in the injuries.
The tribunal said it accepted the account given by the tuner, which was substantially supported by independent witnesses, and found Mr Mlynarski was “an untruthful witness who has deliberately misrepresented the facts”.
Shortly after the incident, the tuner went to the office to report what had happened and Mr Mlynarski had followed him and lunged in a menacing manner.
The tribunal rejected as “bizarre and incredible” his explanation that he made the lunge merely to demonstrate to an assistant manager that he was fast enough to hit the tuner.
The tribunal said it considered Mr Mlynarski to be “a belligerent individual whose behaviour was wholly unacceptable in the workplace”.
It noted the tuner asked that the gardaí be contacted and considered the mover’s action was such as to merit the reporting of the matter.
But it was common case that there was no disciplinary hearing, but merely an investigatory interview. The interview lacked a number of the characteristics of a disciplinary hearing and the tribunal explicitly made a finding of fact that no disciplinary hearing occurred.
“The absence of a disciplinary hearing is a fatal flaw in any disciplinary process,” it said.
The tribunal determined that Mr Mlynarski was unfairly dismissed, but found that his contribution to his own dismissal was such that the appropriate remedy was an award of compensation in a nil sum.
It added, in its report of the case which has just been published, that it wished specifically to record in its determination that Mr Mlynarski had at no stage shown any shame or guilt at his behaviour and had not apologised to the injured employee.
In his signed statement to his employer he had stated “I am not feeling guilty that he has a broken arm – he started it.”