A tribunal has made a reduced award of €10,000 for unfair dismissal to a builder whose work van racked up over 1,000 miles in “unexplained” driving after his boss discovered a vehicle tracker on the dashboard was being disconnected – and had a second one covertly installed.
The company’s position was that trackers were installed at the start of 2022 for insurance reasons and that all its staff were informed at the time. The respondent’s solicitor submitted that there were “unusual occurrences” with the complainant’s van starting in 2022.
The tribunal was told that he respondent found the tracking device “disconnected and sitting loose” on one occasion. It was also told that when the employer was looking into one customer complaint, the tracker supplier reported back that the complainant’s device was not powered up properly and “regularly offline”.
After that, the employer “decided to covertly hardwire a device in the complainant’s van in addition to the dashboard tracker”, the company’s solicitor submitted. Between the installation of the device on an unspecified date and the beginning of November 2023, “considerable unrecorded and unexplained mileage” had built up, with “in excess of 1,000 miles” in the difference between the two tracking devices.
The complainant was called to a disciplinary meeting in December 2023 accused of using the company van for personal travel and of interfering with the dashboard tracking device which the company had fitted. The WRC was told he was dismissed on a finding of gross misconduct following a second meeting a few days later.
The company’s position was that the mileage issue by itself warranted a final written warning, but that unplugging the tracker was a “major breach of trust” and that the only option was immediate dismissal.
The complainant claimed he was dismissed to “make room for a more favoured colleague of the owner”, claiming that the company had cash flow problems and there was a need to make “economies”. He called the issue over the company van “a complete fabrication to cover this”.
The WRC Adjudicator, in his decision, said there was “no doubt that the tracking device had been regularly disconnected” given the anomaly between that tracker and the secret one placed in the van.
He said the employer had launched “quite a major investigation, including installing the hidden tracker”, and that the failure to tell the complainant he was under investigation was “troubling”.
He found that there had been a lack of natural justice in the moves to dismiss the complainant and ruled the dismissal unfair – but said the worker had made a very considerable contribution by interfering with the device.
Other procedural issues identified by the adjudicator were that the same person carried out the investigation and the disciplinary hearing and that there was no appeal offered.
The complainant’s dismissal was found to be unfair and the complainant was awarded €10,000.
This decision highlights the importance of following fair and proper procedures when handling investigations and subsequent dismissals. The failure of the respondent to adhere to the principles of natural justice rendered the process inherently unfair and thus contributed to finding of unfair dismissal.
The principles of natural justice represent the basic requirements of fair procedures. The minimum requirements are:
- The employee must have notice of the specific allegation to which they must answer and of the likely consequences if the allegation is proven.
- The employee must have a genuine opportunity to attempt to refute the allegation or to explain or mitigate his or her conduct.
- There must be an unbiased consideration of the employee’s explanation and that consideration must be free from pre-determination and uninfluenced by irrelevant considerations.
- There must be separation between the investigation and disciplinary process and there must be a right of appeal.
Having clear terms of reference which set out the matters under investigation, the scope of the investigation and methodology should be communicated to both parties.
More information here.
