An employee of a liver sausage manufacturer is caught taking liver sausages home. Normally, there is a crate containing unsellable sausages that employees are allowed to take home. This was not there this day. The employer proceeds with summary dismissal for theft. The employee goes to court.
Employee request
Primarily, the employee asks the court to annul the instant dismissal and order the employer to continue to pay wages. In the alternative, the employee seeks an award of transitional compensation, liquidated damages and fair compensation.
According to the employee, the summary dismissal is not legally valid because the urgent reason is lacking. The employee did nothing other than what is normally allowed, namely taking liver sausages that are no longer eligible for sale.
Defence employer
According to the employer, the employee took a bag full of saleable sausages from the stock without permission and without paying. That constitutes theft. By doing so, the employee violated the employer's trust to such an extent that he can no longer be an employee in his position, where he has free access to the stock of finished products. The employee's actions also violated strict food safety laws and regulations.
Judge's considerations
At the hearing, the employee indicated that he resigned from the summary dismissal because he could not handle a return with all that had been said about him. This establishes that the employment contract has ended. The issue in this case therefore remains whether the summary dismissal was validly granted and, if not, whether the employer must pay compensation.
According to the employer, theft occurred and even without a strict zero-tolerance policy, it had to be clear to all employees that theft leads to dismissal.
According to the employee, it has been the culture and custom at the company for many years that sausages that do not meet sales standards are collected in a crate, and may be taken home (free of charge) by staff members. The employee himself, in his years of loyal service, has acquired the authority to decide which sausages are saleable or not. He planned to put the crate of non-saleable sausages at the exit for his colleagues. The fact that he himself took those sausages from the crate before it was at the exit does not mean that these sausages were not allowed to be taken. Therefore, there is no question of theft.
The court found that there was no evidence that taking home sausages without paying for them was not allowed. It was clear from the documents and witness statements that staff were allowed to take home sausages in two ways: by using the so-called sausage money or by taking away unsellable sausages from a crate located at the exit.
The court finds that there is insufficient evidence that there are clear rules on whether or not sausages may be taken and who is allowed (or allowed) to decide on this. Given the lack of an unambiguous, transparent policy that is also known to the employees (other than that theft is not allowed as described in the Internal Regulations), it cannot be established that the employee acted contrary to the rules.
Judge's ruling
Therefore, the judge concludes that there was no theft of sausages. In the absence of an urgent reason, the instant dismissal is therefore not legally valid.
The court awarded the requested liquidated damages, the transitional compensation of over €52,000 and fair compensation of €150,000. The fair compensation is based on the fact that it is not implausible that the employee would have continued working for the employer until his retirement had it not been for the summary dismissal. After all, he has worked there for 36 years without any significant problems and the incident with the sausages would not have provided a valid ground for dissolution either.
Tip: The judge in this case weighed in that there is no zero tolerance policy on theft, which is also known to employees. It is wise to check how this is regulated within your company.
EN 
NL 
ES 