Question

Karen is a director of Trust Insurance Ltd. Trust Insurance Ltd has recently introduced a new computer system for processing insurance claims. Karen has trained two members of her team on how to use the new computer system.

George is 58 years old and has worked for Trust Insurance Ltd for 30 years. He is struggling to adapt to the new computer system which makes processing claims faster. George refuses to use the online training program to practise using the new computer system.

Karen has been contacted by a customer. The customer said that they had telephoned George about a claim they had made. The customer said George was rude to them on the telephone and told the customer to ‘go away and annoy someone else’. Karen called George into her office. She told him about the complaint from the customer and dismissed him with one month of notice of termination last week.

Tony is also in Karen’s team for three years. Two months ago, Karen observed Tony accepting an envelope from a customer. The envelope was very full and Karen saw that it contained several HK$1,000 notes. Karen believes that, with proof, much secret commercial information and clients’ personal data have been leaked to another competing local insurance company by Tony. She has found out that some of her major regular customers have been diverted to her competitor’s insurance company. Karen also discovered with evidences that Tony has stolen company’s properties for sale and kept the sale money himself three times in the last two months. During the last three months, Karen found with evidences that Tony spent much of his office hours to communicate through his iPhone with his friends to discuss about their private affairs.

Yesterday, Karen dismissed Tony without any notice of termination and compensation.

A.Advise whether Karen can dismiss George through reasonable dismissal mode?

B.Advise whether Karen can dismiss Tony through summary dismissal mode?

Answer 1

A. Yes, Karen can dismiss George through reasonable dismissal mode because George's conduct was not good for the customer. He is showing his frustration over the customer. Trust India is an insurance company and it is mainly customer-oriented since it gets its business from the customers. George's behavior can prove to be very harmful to the business by spoiling the market reputation of the company. So, inspite of working for so many years, Karen has thought of his dismissal. For this purpose, reasonable dismissal is the best mode as George is an offender but he should be dismissed in a proper legal way by first serving a notice period. George's rude conduct is not a very serious offense and he has served the company for thirty years. Hence, he should be dismissed in a fair legal way by reasonable dismissal mode.

B. Yes, Karen can dismiss Tony through summary judgment as his offense of taking a bribe and passing on the customer's information to the rival company is very serious. Summary dismissal refers to a type of dismissal without any prior notice. This dismissal is done for very serious offenses where there is immediate termination from the employment, without any notice. In this case, summary dismissal is fair as Tony's offense is very grave and Karen has made many investigations about tony before removing him by summary judgment. There are many pieces of evidence that Karen possesses against Tony for passing information, stealing and selling company property, and not doing work properly and always busy chatting with friends. So, based on this evidences, Karen has every right to dismiss Tony through summary dismissal mode.