Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterTHE NATIONAL Water Commission (NWC), has won its appeal against a Supreme Court ruling that it unlawfully retired 56-year-old Balteano Duffus 14 years ago as director of corporate planning.
Duffus had sued the NWC seeking damages for breach of contract of employment. He claimed that the NWC had wrongfully terminated his employment in May 1990.
Duffus said he had been a public servant for 23 years when he was sent on retirement. He was appointed director of commercial operations in 1987 and on September 7, 1989, he was re-assigned to the post of director of corporate planning and finance.
He was advised by letter of May 28, 1990 that the post of director of corporate planning was abolished. He was then sent off on pre-retirement leave.
Duffus sued the NWC in 1992 for damages arising from the abolition of his post. He said he thought he would have been reverted to his former post of director of commercial operations.
Justice Lennox Campbell heard the suit in July 2002, and held that there was evidence before him indicating that the post of director of commercial operations was eventually abolished in 1993 and his retirement should be compensated on that basis.
The judge ruled that Duffus was entitled to damages in a sum equivalent to the salary and allowances he would have earned for the period October 30, 1990 to December 1993.
ERROR IN LAW
Attorneys-at-law André Earle and Sheryl Thompson, who represented the NWC, argued on appeal that the judge erred in law and fact when he held that Duffus was wrongfully dismissed.
It was further argued that Duffus did not file the suit until two years after he was sent on retirement, and, therefore, the judge erred when he held that the action was not statute-barred.
The Court of Appeal, comprising the Hon. Ian Forte, president, Mr. Justice Algernon Smith and Mr. Justice Karl Harrison (acting), held that it was quite obvious from the evidence presented at the trial that the post of director of commercial operations was filled by another employee immediately after Duffus was re-assigned on September 4, 1989.
The court held that Duffus 'could not, in law, have been wrongfully dismissed from that post by the letter of May 28, 1990'.
PROTECTED BY ACT
In interpreting the Public Authorities Protection Act, the court found that the NWC was a public authority and its actions were protected by that Act. The court said Duffus filed his suit in excess of one year, therefore his action would be statute-barred.
The Act was amended in 1995, so that citizens can file suits against the State and government agencies within six years of the cause of action. Prior to that, suits would have to be filed within one year.
