£2.3 million to Keogh

[swaledale]

As I correctly predicted, Keogh has won his legal action against the club for unfair dismissal.

Richard Keogh has secured a payout of about £2.3m from Derby after winning his long-running compensation claim against the club. The 34-year-old defender, who finished the season at Huddersfield, brought an action for breach of contract in the wake of his sacking by Derby in October 2019.

Seems the clubs Hr and lawyers knowledge of the law is on a par with some posters on here

[ramAnag]

Hmmm...club captain knowingly asks for or accepts (?) - we’ll never know - lift home from over the limit driver. The journey ends in a car crash and as a result the club captain cannot play (work) for the following nine months...aka the rest of the season.
Justifiably annoyed owner, and wage payer, suggests player/senior employee accepts reduced wage (alleged to be a mere £12k per week) during the period he is unable to play.
Player doesn’t accept this and declines the offer before leaving the club and eventually gaining alternative employment and is then declared eligible for £2.3m in compensation.

Must be the difference between legality and morality. Perhaps someone could explain what our former hero is being ‘compensated’ for.

[macstheman]

It never rains but it pours!!

[MadAmster]

Hmmm...club captain knowingly asks for or accepts (?) - we’ll never know - lift home from over the limit driver. The journey ends in a car crash and as a result the club captain cannot play (work) for the following nine months...aka the rest of the season.
Justifiably annoyed owner, and wage payer, suggests player/senior employee accepts reduced wage (alleged to be a mere £12k per week) during the period he is unable to play.
Player doesn’t accept this and declines the offer before leaving the club and eventually gaining alternative employment and is then declared eligible for £2.3m in compensation.

Must be the difference between legality and morality. Perhaps someone could explain what our former hero is being ‘compensated’ for.

If I was paranoid I'd say because we are Derby County and we seem to be gaining the same kind of NOLU that Millwall would claim a patent on.

The real answer will be that the courts have found that RK was illegally sacked by DCFC. £2.3M divided by his weekly wage of £24K comes to 96 weeks. Isn't that the amount of time he had left on his contract (Sept 2019 until June 30th 2021)? Derby have been found to have broken that contract and have been ordered to pay it off. It would seem logical to us to subtract what he's subsequently earned at MK and Hudders but I'm not sure how the Law on that works. It may be that those MK/H wages have been subtracted and that there is a punitive element to the award. We fans will never know.

[swaledale]

Hmmm...club captain knowingly asks for or accepts (?) - we’ll never know - lift home from over the limit driver. The journey ends in a car crash and as a result the club captain cannot play (work) for the following nine months...aka the rest of the season.
Justifiably annoyed owner, and wage payer, suggests player/senior employee accepts reduced wage (alleged to be a mere £12k per week) during the period he is unable to play.
Player doesn’t accept this and declines the offer before leaving the club and eventually gaining alternative employment and is then declared eligible for £2.3m in compensation.

Must be the difference between legality and morality. Perhaps someone could explain what our former hero is being ‘compensated’ for.

For unfair termination of contract obvs! Now IF they had sacked the two players actually responsible for the incident, those convicted of drink driving they might have had a case. Though again that would depend upon the terms in his employment contract, one can't just impose certain conditions if they are not actually in one employment contract!

You talk of "morality" but yours is clearly skewed if you condone the club treating one player who was not responsible for the incident differently because he couldn't play for the rest of the season, than the other two who were convicted of an offence because they could and had a value to the club.

So if 3 teachers went on a night out and two were convicted but able to teach but one was so injured he couldn't do his job for a year, you would deem it fair and legal to sack the injured one but merely discipline the other two and retain them?

If so then you understanding of fairness is I suggest somewhat off beam!

[swaledale]

If I was paranoid I'd say because we are Derby County and we seem to be gaining the same kind of NOLU that Millwall would claim a patent on.

The real answer will be that the courts have found that RK was illegally sacked by DCFC. £2.3M divided by his weekly wage of £24K comes to 96 weeks. Isn't that the amount of time he had left on his contract (Sept 2019 until June 30th 2021)? Derby have been found to have broken that contract and have been ordered to pay it off. It would seem logical to us to subtract what he's subsequently earned at MK and Hudders but I'm not sure how the Law on that works. It may be that those MK/H wages have been subtracted and that there is a punitive element to the award. We fans will never know.

How? He didn't get another job until after his contract with Derby finished, therefore he is entitled to his salary until his contract ended.

[ramAnag]

For unfair termination of contract obvs! Now IF they had sacked the two players actually responsible for the incident, those convicted of drink driving they might have had a case. Though again that would depend upon the terms in his employment contract, one can't just impose certain conditions if they are not actually in one employment contract!

You talk of "morality" but yours is clearly skewed if you condone the club treating one player who was not responsible for the incident differently because he couldn't play for the rest of the season, than the other two who were convicted of an offence because they could and had a value to the club.

So if 3 teachers went on a night out and two were convicted but able to teach but one was so injured he couldn't do his job for a year, you would deem it fair and legal to sack the injured one but merely discipline the other two and retain them?

If so then you understanding of fairness is I suggest somewhat off beam!

I suspect you may know more about employment law than me so I won’t argue that point further.

On the more moral aspect you talk of my morality being ‘skewed’ because I am treating people differently.
My answer is...as an employer I have to treat people differently because their actions and the repercussions of those actions were different.

The facts as I understand them are, and I don’t think these are debatable...two young players were over the limit after a staff function.
As a result they were subsequently involved in a car crash which resulted in them being dealt with by the law...licences withdrawn, fines enforced, community service orders if I remember rightly etc. That was the price they rightly paid, along with some internal club sanctions that I don’t remember or know the details of.

At the same time the club captain/senior leader decided, a long with a te enage player, to accept a lift from a driver he knew to be breaking the law.

That action doesn’t appear to be against the law, but morally RK’s actions are, imo, reprehensible. He should have been setting a good example, he shouldn’t have been complicit in an activity that was against the law knowing that the action of the two drivers was likely to jeopardise the safety of others. To compound matters, it was his own stupidity, imo, that led to him being unable to play/work for the rest of the season, much to the detriment of the club and his employer.

Given those circumstances, especially as DCFC were prepared to continue to pay half his wages at a time when he was unavailable to play as a direct consequence of his own actions, I can’t see how one is, morally, meant to feel anything but sympathy for the employer.

I don’t think the outcome of this matter is fair to MM and DCFC and I don’t see how that makes my concept of fairness ‘off beam’.
As regards your teacher point...I’m not entirely sure what your point is, but if I hadn’t been able to do my job because of an ‘accident’ involving illegal activity and drunkenness I wouldn’t expect to have kept my job let alone be compensated.

[MadAmster]

How? He didn't get another job until after his contract with Derby finished, therefore he is entitled to his salary until his contract ended.

Keogh's Derby contract, prior to the sacking, ran until June 2021. He joined MK Dons in August 2020 and Huddersfield in January 2021. Both contracts coincide with the dates of his Derby contract.

[AdiSalisbury]

I'm not surprised. If it's true that they offered him a reduced contract, risking a constructive dismissal, to then dismiss him on grounds of gross misconduct when he allegedly refuses it (so they've effectively dismissed him for refusing a lesser contract) appears from the outside some serious mis-management. Regardless if the act he may have committed (which none of us really know, speculation isn't fact), the motives for dismissal seemingly weren't aligned to the reason.

RA: Swale doesn't know any more than you and is regularly factually wrong throughout his posts on the subject, I wouldn't waste your time to his ego boasting.

Whatever the facts of the case, I'm pleased for Richard on a personal level.

[Andy_Faber]

Just one little moral spin on this. I worked for a local 'blue chip' company for many years. One of the things drilled into me early on in my employment was that, whether I thought I was representing the company 24/7, I WAS, and any action I undertook (good or bad) reflected on the Company either directly or indirectly just as it did me personally. Made me take a step back from doing one or two really stupid things in my twenties, because I cared for my employers (as well, ultimately, for myself). Maybe Keogh didn't.