A former frontline worker at Caribbean supermarket chain Epicurean has failed in her legal claim for unfair dismissal, after the Industrial Court issued a ruling confirming the retailer was fully within its legal rights to terminate her employment for violating company policy around the staff loyalty program.
Handed down on May 22, the court’s judgment centered on Narshebar Richards, who worked as a bag packer and carryout attendant for the supermarket. The court found that Richards had explicitly breached internal company rules by accumulating customer loyalty points onto her personal staff loyalty card. Prior to the incident, Richards had signed formal documentation acknowledging that this exact practice was considered fraudulent conduct by the company, and that any violation would carry disciplinary consequences up to and including immediate termination.
The case traces back to an internal human resources investigation launched by Epicurean in January 2015. The probe uncovered that a total of 47.38 Eastern Caribbean dollars in loyalty points had been added to Richards’ card from customer purchases. During questioning, Richards admitted that on at least one occasion, a customer had opted to give her the loyalty points from their transaction in place of a cash tip.
Richards’ legal team argued that the customer’s voluntary consent to transfer the points should make the practice acceptable under employment terms. But the court rejected this reasoning outright, noting that no third-party customer has the authority to alter or override the binding terms of an employee’s contract with their employer. The judgment also dismissed arguments that the small monetary value of the points made termination an excessively harsh penalty. The court emphasized that the core issue in the case was not the amount of money involved, but the breach of workplace trust and integrity that the conduct represented.
While the Industrial Court did acknowledge several procedural gaps in Epicurean’s internal investigation—most notably the retailer’s failure to retain and present security video footage linked to some of the transactions in question—it ultimately ruled that Richards’ own admission of the improper conduct was alone enough to legally justify her dismissal.
In its final conclusion, the court stated that Epicurean held clear, reasonable grounds to conclude that Richards had committed workplace misconduct, carried out an investigation that met basic procedural standards, and acted reasonably when making the decision to terminate her employment.