Dubai court orders three warehouse workers to pay company Dh356,000 after cameras catch them stealing chicken

Dubai: The Dubai Civil Court of First Instance ordered three employees to jointly pay a company an amount of Dh356,000, after they were found responsible for seizing goods belonging to the company, which consisted of cartons of chicken and other food items. Cameras documented their crime, and a final criminal sentence of imprisonment and deportation was issued against them. In detail, the company filed a lawsuit against the three employees, demanding that they jointly pay Dh306,097, the value of the goods that it said were embezzled from its warehouses, in addition to legal interest of 5%, and compensation of Dh200,000 for the material, moral and reputational damages it suffered. The company said in its lawsuit that it discovered, during an inventory count, a shortage of several items, with a value of Dh140,732, before subsequent inventory operations revealed that the value of the missing inventory had increased to more than Dh306,000. It added that an internal investigation, which included a review of inventory transfer operations and surveillance camera recordings, concluded with the discovery of a theft of goods, noting that a supervisor at the warehouse spotted one of the defendants, a worker, loading quantities of chicken onto a vehicle without documents proving the order of the goods, while the other two defendants were driving the vehicle and assisting in the delivery process. The company explained that it confronted the three employees with the evidence it had obtained, including photos, recordings, conversations, and financial transfers, and said that they admitted to embezzling and stealing the goods, which prompted it to file a criminal lawsuit against them. According to the civil case documents, a criminal ruling was issued sentencing the three employees to six months in prison, fining them jointly the sum of Dh306,097, and deporting them from the country. The ruling became final after no appeal was filed within the prescribed time limits. The court affirmed that the final criminal ruling has legal force before the civil court regarding what it decided in a necessary manner concerning the occurrence of the act and its attribution to its perpetrators, and therefore it adhered to what the criminal ruling concluded regarding the proven seizure of the company’s funds by the defendants. The court considered that this act constituted an unlawful error that resulted in harm to the company, and that the proof of the error by a final criminal ruling makes the employees liable for compensation, since their action caused the company to lose the funds in question, and deprived it of benefiting from and investing them. Regarding the value of the compensation, the court estimated the material damage incurred by the company at Dh50,000, in addition to the value of the goods that were stolen, bringing the total amount awarded to Dh356,097. In contrast, the court rejected the company’s request for compensation for moral damages, explaining that it had not provided evidence of the nature of the moral damage it suffered, or that its reputation, social standing, or financial standing was harmed as a result of the incident. The court also ruled that legal interest of 5% should be charged on the amount awarded, starting from the date the judgment becomes final until full payment is made. It ordered the three employees to jointly pay the court fees and expenses, and Dh500 for attorney fees, and rejected all other claims. The judgment was issued in the presence of the defendants, after the court was satisfied that they had been notified of the lawsuit in the legal manner, and that they had not attended the hearings.