The claimant was dismissed by reason of gross misconduct and in particular findings of dishonesty and fraud. The claimant had been a general operative / fork lift driver with the firm for some six years, based in their Kildare warehouse. Each pallet of goods arriving has a non-transferable number that identified what was on the pallet and where it should be stored, although sometimes exceptional codes would be used where something went wrong e.g. a pallet may be directed to a particular loading bay and when the driver gets to that bay he might find that the bay is already full. Pallets might then be given an exception code or be placed in an area referred to as the 'sin bin'. A bonus system operates for quick work.

A routine audit found an unusual amount of exception code uses by the claimant over a number of shifts. An investigatory meeting was held, although the claimant was given no prior knowledge of what that meeting would be about. At a second meeting the claimant said he might have over-used exception codes and because he had been encouraged to use the sin bin as little as possible. He accepted it was not best practice but he made no monetary gain and said that practices were different on the night shift than when he moved to day shift and he had not been trained in those different practices.

The tribunal was critical of the employer's investigation after the claimant's explanations were give, in particular the “Sin Bin” operations were never questioned, the night shift staff were never involved, the amount Type, timing and duration of training was never shown. Instead the investigator placed undue weight on the fact that the absence of explicit direction from line management was a factor that automatically put the matter into the disciplinary process. This meant, in the view of the EAT, that the disciplinary process was also flawed because the panel relied on a flawed investigatory process.

The EAT awarded the claimant €25,000.00 under the Unfair Dismissals Acts, 1977 to 2007 and a further €2,872.00 under the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Acts, 1973 to 2005. 
http://www.workplacerelations.ie/en/Cases/2015/April/UD1317_2013_MN666_2013.html