{"id":60495,"date":"2025-09-12T23:13:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T23:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/60495\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T23:13:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T23:13:07","slug":"lidl-store-manager-who-couldnt-produce-receipt-for-drinks-loses-unfair-dismissal-claim-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/60495\/","title":{"rendered":"Lidl store manager who couldn\u2019t produce receipt for drinks loses unfair dismissal claim \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A deputy store manager at Lidl<\/a> who was sacked from her \u20ac50,000-a-year job after being accused of taking energy drinks from stock and consuming them without paying first has failed in her claim for unfair dismissal. <\/p>\n

The Workplace Relations Commission<\/a> (WRC) has rejected a claim under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against Lidl Ireland Gmbh by Katazyna Wadlewska, in a decision published this week. <\/p>\n

Ms Wadlewska came under scrutiny following an internal stock audit at her store in 2023. The audit discovered that product was being removed from the shelf without being paid for, Lidl\u2019s employee relations manager Scott Jevons submitted. <\/p>\n

It was alleged that Ms Wadlewska removed a six-pack of Kong Light energy drink from the supermarket between August 14th and 20th, 2023, and consumed them in its warehouse area. <\/p>\n

Ed Shannan, for the complainant, submitted that his client at all stages in the disciplinary investigation \u201caccepted she took the drinks from the shelf, drank one, and left them in the warehouse\u201d. <\/p>\n

Ms Wadlewska maintained it was \u201ccommon practice\u201d at the store to take product at break times and pay afterwards. <\/p>\n

She denied \u201cany intent to steal\u201d and said in evidence that she had purchased the drinks \u201ceither later the same day or on a subsequent day\u201d. <\/p>\n

Ms Wadlewska told the WRC she had not been able to provide receipts because of the passage of time, but said she had paid \u201cin full\u201d. <\/p>\n

She told the WRC she believed there was \u201cbias\u201d at play in the investigation. This was on the basis that the investigator, newly-appointed store manager Steven Morrissey, was married to another worker at the store who was her subordinate. <\/p>\n

Ms Wadlewska claimed Mr Morrissey\u2019s wife received \u201cpreferential treatment\u201d in the workplace. She said she once confronted Mr Morrissey about that and he \u201creacted angrily\u201d. <\/p>\n

Mr Morrisey denied there was \u201cany conflict of interest\u201d related to his wife\u2019s employment. <\/p>\n

Mr Morrissey said that when he spoke to his predecessor about the alleged practice of taking product described by Ms Wadlewska, the previous manager denied it. <\/p>\n

The company disciplinary officer, Steven Hegarty, gave evidence that Ms Wadlewska \u201cadmitted her actions\u201d and expressed remorse for them. <\/p>\n

He took the view that there had been a \u201cfundamental breakdown of trust\u201d in Ms Wadlewska and decided to dismiss her on October 20th, 2023. <\/p>\n

Adjudicator \u00dana Glazier-Farmer said: \u201cI find that the investigation was conducted in accordance with the code of practice and that the complainant was afforded fair procedures throughout.\u201d <\/p>\n

She noted Ms Wadlewska did not attempt to appeal her dismissal to the company before launching a WRC complaint, on the basis that she had already found a new job. <\/p>\n

She found Ms Wadlewska had not been unfairly dismissed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A deputy store manager at Lidl who was sacked from her \u20ac50,000-a-year job after being accused of taking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,19,17,19267,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-60495","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-lidl","13":"tag-workplace-relations-commission"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}