The Industrial Disputes Tribunal (IDT) has awarded a former warehouse manager 25 weeks’ pay as compensation following his dismissal, despite finding him guilty of “severe negligence”.

In a report released on March 15, the IDT panel said that the responses to questions at its hearings from Lloyd Bryan, a former warehouse manager at Cost Club Limited (MegaMart Wholesale Club) showed that he “lacks commitment, accompanied with a sparsity of evidence that gave little or no support to his submission”.

However, the panel concluded that the four issues raised against him by his employers in his dismissal letter “did not relate to any specific infraction obtained in the company’s disciplinary code”.

Therefore the panel, chaired by veteran Trade Unionist Donovan Hunter, found that Bryan was “unjustifiably dismissed”, and awarded him compensation of 25 weeks’ pay.

The matter was referred to the IDT for resolution in June last year by the minister of labour and social security, based on a recent amendment to the Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act, which allows non-unionised workers to have their cases referred to the tribunal for disposal.

The issue pitted Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU) Senior Vice-President Wesley Nelson, acting as private consultant to Bryan, against former National Workers’ Union Vice-President Howard Duncan, who is currently an industrial relations consultant, representing MegaMart. Sittings were held between September and December, last year.

According to the IDT’s report, Bryan was employed to MegaMart as a driver in 2000, and promoted to warehouse manager in 2007.

He was called to the office of the company’s director of operations, Sachin Gupte, to attend a disciplinary hearing on November 12, 2015. This resulted from charges arising from an invoice he had submitted to the company’s logistics manager, Curtis Britton, in October of that year for payment of $50,000 to a delivery goods trucker whom he said he had engaged to take goods from the company’s warehouse in Kingston to its Montego Bay store. However, the goods were never delivered.

The IDT said that subsequent to the hearing, it was concluded that Bryan was culpable of misconduct as spelt out in his termination letter, which stated:

“That on Monday, October 12, 2015 knowing and deliberately submitted an invoice in the amount of $50,000 to Mr Curtis Britton warehouse manager for work not done: You advised Mr Britton that the truck transaction took place and this you did not challenge; that you failed to follow the established standard operating procedure; that if Mr Leighton Brown did not intercept and investigate the suspicious transaction, the company would have been defrauded of $50,000 for work not done.”

The company said Bryan had requested that Britton process the invoice, so that the “author of the invoice” be paid for work he had done in transporting the goods. Britton attached a purchase order to the invoice as was required and submitted it to the accounts department for payment to be made. However, the accounts department was concerned that the security personnel at the warehouse gate had no record of a truck registered CH 1677, as reflected on the invoice, entering the premises on Saturday, October 10, 2015.

The accounts department required Britton to produce other documents that should have accompanied the invoice, along with a purchase order and, more specifically, transfer documents reflecting items that were to be delivered by the truck. Britton referred the accounts department to Bryan, who had been acting on his (Britton’s) behalf while he was on leave at the time the delivery was supposed to have been made.

On October 14, an accountant at the company, Leighton Brown, visited the warehouse and spoke with Bryan and Britton. The following day, Bryan contacted Brown and advised him that the truck had not carried out the function, hence no goods were delivered from the warehouse in Kingston to the Montego Bay store, yet an invoice for payment for delivery was submitted.

Bryan said he hired the truck to deliver goods because no Mega Mart truck was available. The company said that the procedure for hiring trucks required: an e-mail to be sent to the director of operations seeking approval to hire another truck; copies of the truck’s paper work, including the driver’s licence, to be submitted; communication on the delivery to be be sent to the receiving store expecting delivery.

These were not done, and Bryan was said to have admitted knowing the procedures, but did not follow them.

According to Bryan, however, MegaMart was experiencing a shortage of delivery trucks. He said he received a directive from the operations manager that, if necessary, he should hire a truck to avoid a shortage of goods at the Montego Bay store.

He said that on leaving the warehouse, and on his way to the Waterloo Road store (Kingston), he saw a trucker that he knew and asked him whether he could handle the trip and the trucker agreed.

Bryan said he requested the trucker write an invoice for the delivery which he did, and handed it to him.

On his return to the Waterloo Road store, he assumed that the goods were taken up by the truck, but failed to check if the delivery had actually taken place.

He said that on October 12 he handed the invoice from the trucker to Britton, who subsequently sent it to the accounts department.

On October 14, the accountant Brown visited the warehouse, as the invoice was not approved. He requested copies of the transfer documents, which Bryan could not produce.

Bryan said that having failed to find the transfer documents, he contacted the trucker regarding the delivery he should have made. But the trucker informed him that “the truck had developed mechanical problems hence he was not able to do the delivery”.

The IDT said it found that Bryan’s response to the charges brought against him “lacks commitment, accompanied with a sparsity of evidence that gave little or no support to his submission”.

However, the tribunal noted that during cross-examination the company never challenged Bryan’s claim that the operations manager told him that he could hire a truck if necessary to move goods to the Montego Bay store.

The IDT said that the issue of the invoice requested by Bryan from the trucker raised some concerns, including that: an invoice is normally presented after the service has been rendered, not prior to the service being rendered; and, one of Bryan’s responsibilities as warehouse manager was to oversee the loading of trucks making deliveries, yet on the morning of October 10 he left the warehouse and proceeded to MegaMart Waterloo Road, and returned in the afternoon, but did not check to see if the goods had left for Montego Bay.

In addition, Bryan submitted an invoice to the logistic smanager for a payment of $50,000 to the trucker, without ascertaining whether or not the delivery was made.

“Not only was the invoice submitted for work not done, but it was unaccompanied by the transfer document, an important item to qualify the process. Mr Britton, in evidence, said he asked Bryan for the transfer document but he did not receive it,” the IDT reported.

“Based on his own evidence, Mr Bryan cast a net of culpability on himself. His conduct fills the requirement of severe negligence. As warehouse manager, Mr Bryan showed an almost wilful disregard for what was expected of him,” the report added.

It stated that Bryan showed “complete inattentiveness” to his job, for example submitting an invalid invoice to Mr Britton and the accounts department when he failed to check if the job was done. He also accepted an invoice from a trucker for a job not done and, in general, failed to follow procedures such as not making himself available to oversee the loading of the truck.

However, the IDT insisted that while Bryan was being cross-examined, it was never suggested to him that his conduct in the matter was deceptive and deceitful, which could have reflected probable fraud.

The IDT insisted that the company did not prove, by way of evidence, that Bryan had attempted to commit fraud nor did he actually commit fraud.

“Despite the fact that the Tribunal found Mr Bryan’s behaviour to be one of severe negligence, the four points of accusation made against him, as laid out in his letter of termination, did not relate to any specific infraction contained in the company’s disciplinary code.

“In light of the above, the tribunal found that Mr Lloyd Bryan was unjustifiably dismissed,” the panel said, and concluded that it was making the compensation award “in keeping with the provisions of the Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act”.