Judicial Review Court overturns IDT ruling granting dismissed employee 12 months' salary

The Judicial Review Court has granted an order quashing a ruling by the Industrial Disputes Tribunal in December 2020 that Island Jamaica Limited should pay compensation of 12 months' salary to a dismissed employee.

The company took the issue to the Supreme Court alleging that the IDT committed significant errors when it made the order for compensation.

The company had terminated the services of Tameka Elliott in 2016 and the matter was referred to the IDT for settlement. The IDT ruled that Elliott must be paid 12 months' salary inclusive of travelling and housing allowance.

Justice Sonya Wint-Blair, after hearing legal arguments, granted an order of certiorari quashing the award which was handed down by the defendant on December 21, 2020.

The claimant stated that it had presented evidence before the IDT that compensation could not be assessed in the amount awarded because Elliott had received two months' salary in lieu of notice and had obtained alternative employment at a higher salary in December 2016 with KMS Jamaica Limited.

Elliot, the company stated, would have lost only one month's salary as a result of the termination.

Attorney-at-law Matthew Royal, who was instructed by Myers Fletcher & Gordon, represented the claimant and asked the judge to grant the order being sought.

Royal argued that no reasons were provided by the IDT in support of its award of compensation to Elliott by the company, “which provided payments for a period of time during which she had already been compensated by the claimant, or for which her losses had been mitigated - or more aptly cauterised - by being employed by another entity at a higher rate of pay.”

He submitted also that the general rule was that the obtainment of fresh employment at an equivalent or higher rate of pay would break the chain of causation between the aggrieved worker's loss and the dismissal “but that that general position would give way to evidence of loss of a continuing nature which may be attributed to the dismissal.”

He argued that in this case, the IDT did not ground its award on the basis of evidence of loss of a continuing nature.

Attorney-at-law Taniesha Rowe-Coke who was instructed by the Director of State Proceedings submitted on behalf of the defendant that the compensation amount awarded to the former employer was neither unreasonable, irrational nor unlawful. She argued that the IDT can have regard to the existence of both mitigating and aggravating factors on both the employer's side  and employee's side.

The court in awarding judgment last month to the claimant awarded legal costs in favour of the claimant.

-Barbara Gayle

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