Labour Court upholds dismissal of employee for misusing petty cash on chocolate bars

The pleasure of tucking into two chocolate bars purchased with money from her company's petty cash came at a high price for a sales manager, she lost her job because of the indiscretion.

The two chocolate bars were the subject of legal scrutiny - first during arbitration proceedings during which a commissioner accepted her excuse that she was hungry and thus bought the sweet treats. It also formed part of the Labour Court in Johannesburg’s consideration.

JDG Ltd, trading as Hi Fi Corporation, turned to the labour court to review the arbitration ruling which ordered it to reinstate the employee, only identified as MM. The arbitrator earlier found her dismissal to be substantively unfair.

She was employed as the sales manager of the applicant’s branch in Jabulani Mall. Her dismissal followed after she took petty cash money, on two separate occasions, from the applicant to purchase stationery for a promotion run by the applicant.

MM purchased the stationery but also bought two chocolates for her private consumption. She did not disclose this purchase to the branch manager.

A week after the purchase the branch manager noticed the shortage in the petty cash account. He approached her and she claimed that she did not know how to repay the money to the petty cash account.

She was brought before a disciplinary hearing, and found guilty of misusing petty cash. The chairperson recommended dismissal, which was implemented.

She challenged this and the arbitrator found that if MM was intent on concealing the purchase, she would not have submitted the till slips to the applicant which provided evidence of the two purchases. 

He found that the till slips are there for everybody to see. The arbitrator noted that he appreciates that MM was not authorised to purchase chocolates but accepted her explanation that she was hungry and that she did not have an opportunity to have lunch. 

She had a clean disciplinary record at the time and even offered to repay the money back, the arbitrator said.

But the company asked the labour court to review the arbitrator’s findings on the ground that MM made herself guilty of an offence which falls under the scope of dishonesty. The uncontested evidence was that she used company funds to purchase chocolates for herself and she failed to disclose this to anyone, the company argued.

It said if the slips were not eventually checked, the fact that she purchased items for herself using company funds would never have been discovered. It was argued on behalf of the company that the trust relationship is completely destroyed. 

Acting Judge C de Kock said it is not disputed that the trust relationship has broken down. The judge added that it was also an unreasonable conclusion to reach that MM had some sort of justification for using company funds and then not to disclose that she had done so.   

According to the judge “it is beyond this court’s understanding” that the arbitrator can find that an act of using petty cash for an employee’s own personal use, did not constitute an act of dishonesty. 

“The undisputed evidence was that she did not seek permission to use petty cash money for her own use and neither did she declare the fact that she used petty cash money when she returned to the workplace on both occasions after she purchased chocolates,” the judge said in confirming her dismissal.