Judge Rules Man Fired for Visiting Pub on a Sick Day Did Nothing Wrong

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A Newcastle, England man called in sick to Debmat Surfacing, which he was known to do because he suffers from a lung condition. No issue right? Wrong.

Colin Kane, a 66-year-old driver, went to the pub on the day he called in sick and was spotted by a coworker who told the bosses about Kane’s pub visit.

Kane received a call from his boss asking how he was feeling, Kane told his boss he had “been in bed all day due to his chest.” When Kane returned to work he was called into a meeting where he was scolded for going to the pub on a sick day and in the following days, Kane was fired.

When Kane attended his employment tribunal Judge Andrea Pitt agreed with Kane that he shouldn’t have been fired from his job and ruled that Debmat Surfacing, “made a gross assumption..and there is no rule that an employee cannot socialize in whatever way they deem appropriate whilst absent from work through illness.”