Civil court clears salesman of misappropriation claim

The First Hall of the Civil Curt acquitted Raymond Galea of misappropriating money from the sale of goods owned by Chef Choice Ltd.

The company argued that the man had kept for himself a cut from the money he collected as a deliveryman for Chef Choice.

The case dates back to October 1998 when during the weekly reconciliation, the company found a discrepancy of over 76 kg of chicken cuts.

The salesman did not give an acceptable explanation for this loss and had his job terminated. The company cross-checked its sales records for the time Galea was employed with it. The checks brought to light that between 1996 and 1998 Lm15,000 (€34,000) worth of meat cuts were not accounted for.

On 4 April 2003, the Criminal Court had also acquitted the man of the same charges over lack of evidence. However, Chef Choice lawyers filed a civil suit to get reimbursed the monies allegedly misappropriated. 

Mr Justice Joseph Micallef said that the fact that in a civil claim, the applicant did not need to prove the claim beyond reasonable doubt, did not mean that guilt can be found over feeble evidence. The court held that Chef Choice's claim was based on allegations. The company's officers themselves stated that there was no solid proof against Galea. "If there was, we would have invoiced him for the amount," they said. 

Judge Micallef said that the burden of proof over Galea's actions fell upon the company. However the company failed to prove its allegations. Furthermore, evidence showed that Chef Coice had not performed weekly reconciliations for a number of weeks prior to the incident and loading sheets had gone missing. The lack of checks by the company could have resulted in abusive behaviour by employees. 

The court acquitted Galea stating that the company failed to prove its claim against him.

Lawyers Robert Galea and Shazou Ghaznavi appeared for Galea.