A veteran employee who was working with Tata-owned Jaguar Land Rover for more than two decades won a lawsuit against the company over his unfair termination from the organization for being absent for 808 days in the last 20 years of his service with the company.
The plaintiff, Vic Rumbold lives near Castle Bromwich plant and used to work in shifts. He remained absent on several occasions for several different reasons. Among these different reasons, Rumbold cited health reasons, injuries at work and, on one occasion, an alleged assault.
The company allegedly did not follow the correct procedure during the termination process in December 2018. After the company fired him, he sued the company and won the lawsuit.
Rumbold moved the Birmingham Labour Court alleging wrongful termination. Judge Johnson observed that the company had not applied the Attendance Management Procedures correctly and had not reasonably reached a stage in that process where they could consider dismissal.
The ruling said, “if Jaguar Land Rover had followed its own procedures, it would have reached the stage where Mr. Vic Rumbold would have received advice or a warning about his absences so that he could improve. Everything seems to be bad for the company, but Mr. Vic really had health problems. In early 2018 he experienced hip problems and was diagnosed with avascular necrosis disease, which causes chronic pain. So strong was his ailment that he could not work from March 12 to August 13 of that same year. He needed a hip replacement operation.”
The order further stated that the company, upon learning of the man’s illness, assigned him other tasks, which the plaintiff described as “made up just to get him back to work.
However, Jaguar Land Rover submitted before the court, “the level of absence during the last 18 years costs approximately 130 thousand dollars. We need to consider the behavior, absence and evidence of enthusiasm to return.”
The judge ruled that further that the compensation amount will be decided until next year.
