A routine evening shift at Carrefour Supermarket ended in humiliation, hospital treatment and the loss of a job for cashier Nancy Nduta Munene.
Three years later, a judge has ruled that she should never have been dismissed in the first place.
The Employment and Labour Relations Court has found that Carrefour unfairly fired Munene after she was assaulted by a customer at one of its Nairobi branches, holding that the supermarket punished an employee who was simply doing her job.
Instead of protecting her after the attack, the court said, the retailer subjected her to disciplinary proceedings despite failing to prove she had committed any misconduct.
In a judgement delivered late July 2026, Justice Onesmus Makau awarded the former cashier KSh246,554, declaring that Carrefour had no valid reason to summarily dismiss her.
Checkout Clash
Munene joined Majid Al Futtaim Hypermarkets Ltd, which operates Carrefour Supermarket in Kenya, as a merchandiser in October 2019.
Her performance earned her a promotion to cashier in May 2021, raising her monthly gross salary to KSh35,222.
Trouble struck on the evening of January 30, 2023, while she was manning an express checkout reserved for customers carrying no more than ten items.
At around 6:45 p.m., customer Carol Mwaura approached her counter with far more items than permitted.
Munene politely directed the customer to a regular checkout.
According to her testimony, that simple instruction sparked an ugly confrontation.
She told the court the customer became abusive almost immediately, hurling insults before throwing a shopping bag at her face.
The customer allegedly continued shouting, called her degrading names and eventually slapped her so hard that she temporarily lost part of her hearing.
The cashier said she instinctively dropped a packet of biscuits onto the floor after the blow landed.
She maintained she never retaliated and instead tried to remain calm throughout the ordeal.
She later reported the assault at Parklands Police Station and received treatment at Uthiru Hospital.
Munene also claimed Carrefour’s Human Resource Manager urged her to withdraw criminal charges against the customer, allegedly promising compensation, payment of her medical bills and even promotion if she abandoned the case. She refused.
Dismissal Battle
After returning from sick leave, Munene said management’s attitude changed.
She received a show-cause letter, attended disciplinary proceedings and was summarily dismissed on February 20, 2023 for allegedly violating company policies on customer care, hygiene and cashier procedures.
Carrefour defended the dismissal, arguing that Munene failed to package the customer’s shopping properly, engaged in an argument instead of seeking help and breached hygiene rules by placing food on the floor.
The supermarket insisted it followed the law by issuing a show-cause letter, conducting a disciplinary hearing and allowing her to appeal.
Justice Makau agreed that the disciplinary process substantially complied with the Employment Act.
However, he found the dismissal collapsed on a far more fundamental issue.
Carrefour never produced the CCTV footage that allegedly captured the incident, nor did it call any eyewitnesses who actually witnessed the confrontation.
Instead, the company’s case relied mainly on testimony from its Human Capital Manager, who had not personally seen what happened.
“The evidence by RW1 is hearsay and cannot impeach the Claimant’s evidence,” the judge observed while accepting Munene’s account.
Court Rebuke
Justice Makau concluded that Munene was the victim, not the aggressor.
He found she never deliberately violated company policies by placing biscuits on the floor.
Instead, the action resulted from the shock of being physically assaulted moments earlier.
The judge also noted that security officers only intervened after the customer had already slapped the cashier, despite surveillance cameras monitoring the supermarket.
In one of the judgement’s strongest findings, the court said Carrefour failed in its duty to protect its employee before later turning against her.
“Instead of helping her get justice for the attack,” Justice Makau wrote, “it demanded that she drops charges against the customer, and when she declined it dismissed her.”
Although the court accepted that Carrefour had largely followed the correct disciplinary procedure, it stressed that procedure alone could not justify dismissal.
Under Sections 43 and 45 of the Employment Act, an employer must prove there was a genuine and valid reason for terminating an employee’s contract.
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Justice Makau ruled Carrefour failed to meet that legal burden because the evidence did not support its allegations of misconduct.
The court consequently declared the dismissal unfair and awarded Munene KSh35,222 in notice pay and KSh211,332, equivalent to six months’ salary, as compensation for unfair termination.
She will also receive a certificate of service, costs of the suit and interest on the award.
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