Drug testing court case review | Part 1👨🏻‍⚖️

EKD vs QDA, 2020

Here’s the facts:

  1. EKD was on his final written warning in May 2018. This was for four separate incidents: (a) not reporting a truck fault, (b) damage to a vehicle and a private garage, and (c) not wearing a seatbelt, and (d) not wearing a seatbelt again.
  2. On 2 July 2018, EKD backed into a sign in his truck, and didn’t report it.
  3. The next day, he was invited into a disciplinary meeting to occur the following week. One of the concerns was that when EKD didn’t report the incident, the company didn’t have a chance to carry out a drug test on him.
  4. The disciplinary meeting took place on 10 July 2018, and the decision was made to dismiss him for: (a) not operating a vehicle safely, and (b) not immediately reporting an accident. EKD said he did report the incident by submitting a form, but the company didn’t receive it!
  5. EKD was dismissed with two weeks’ pay.
  6. EKD raised an unfair dismissal grievance, and was awarded $10,000.

Takeaways from this case coming in our next blog post!

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