A DUBLIN-BASED company has been ordered to pay its former general manager €120,000 in compensation for allowing what the Employment Appeals Tribunal described as “a storm in a teacup” to develop into an unfair dismissal.
Emerald Gas Ltd, of Greenogue Business Park in Rathcoole, Dublin, placed a tracker device on the company car of Thomas Gardner from Castledermot, Co Kildare, in 2009. It was explained at the time to Mr Gardner that the device was not going to be used to monitor his movements but to make him more contactable in an emergency.
Despite this, in April 2010, Mr Gardner was summoned to the head office to explain what his superiors saw as unusually frequent trips to Kilmainham, Dublin, where Mr Gardner had family.
Emerald Gas provides maintenance work on gas networks and, as general manager, Mr Gardner had a supervisory role over fitters employed by the company. While much of this work was in the Kilmainham area, Mr Gardner did explain to the board that one of the company’s directors had given him permission to visit a sick friend in the nearby St James’s Hospital, which may have added to his time in the area.
A further meeting was then arranged for April 19th where Mr Gardner was accused of misuse of company property. It had previously been pointed out to him that he had driven his company car some 15,000km in 15 weeks.
He explained that his commute was a 120km round trip, accounting for almost two-thirds of the 15,000km. He added that under his contract, he was allowed unlimited personal use of the vehicle.
Giving evidence before the tribunal, a company director stated that there was a suspicion that Mr Gardner was taking unapproved personal time while at work and, as such, a decision to place him on “gardening leave” for a week was reached.
A week later, when Mr Gardner asked to be told where he stood with the board before he accounted for his movements further, he was dismissed for failure to provide an explanation.
The tribunal was told that the board had felt that its most senior employee was off and doing his own thing during working hours and so a decision to end Mr Gardner’s employment was agreed.
In making its determination, the tribunal found that at no stage was a proper investigation held into whether the board’s suspicion of dereliction of duty by Mr Gardner was real or not.
It added that no evidence was produced to suggest that he had not performed all of his tasks satisfactorily.
“This was a storm in a teacup that escalated out of control. [Mr Gardner] was suspected of improper activity for which there was no substantiation,” it said.
Furthermore, the tribunal criticised the board of Emerald Gas for failing to alert Mr Gardner to the fact that he was involved in a disciplinary procedure. It noted that while Mr Gardner was not very forthcoming with information about his whereabouts, the “imponderable is whether he would have been so, had he been made aware of the fact of a disciplinary process and the risk of dismissal that he faced”.
Emerald Gas was ordered by the tribunal to pay Mr Gardner a sum of €120,000 in compensation under the Unfair Dismissal Acts, 1977 to 2007.