The United Kingdom Privy Council has ordered the Supreme Court to hear the libel suit which Dr. Samuel Wray, former senior lecturer at the University of the West Indies had brought against the university.

Dr. Wray, who was represented by attorney-at-law Raphael Codlin, took his case to the Privy Council after he lost his legal battle in the Court of Appeal in 2004. He was seeking $7 million in compensation from the university for breach of contract, wrongful dismissal, redundancy payment, libel and negligence.

The Privy Council said Dr. Wray's appeal should be allowed but only to the extent of making a declaration that he was entitled to three months' written notice of the termination of his professorship. The university had only given him two weeks' notice. The Privy Council found that the university's letter of August 15, 1996, reverting Dr. Wray to his substantive post of senior lecturer "was ungracious and inconsiderate" and amounted to a breach of an implied term requiring a reasonable period of notice before Dr. Wray was required to revert to the status of senior lecturer.

Dr. Wray claimed he was libeled in a publication by the university when he was described as senior lecturer. He sued the university after he was reverted.

He was appointed professor of neuropsychology in November 1987, based on the establishment of a chair in mental health (neuropsychology) in the Faculty of Medicine for two years in the first instance, and was subsequently extended until July 1993.

Mr. Justice Donald McIntosh heard the suit in the Supreme Court and dismissed it.

The Court of Appeal comprising Mr. Justice Henderson Downer, Mr. Justice Seymour Panton and Mr. Justice Algernon Smith heard the appeal.Mr. Justice Downer dissented saying he would award Dr. Wray $3.3 million with interest at three per cent for redundancy payments and $6 million for libel with interest at Treasury Bill rates.

Dr. Wray, a 64-year-old from Guyana, was appointed lecturer in psychology in the Department of Psychiatry on June 26, 1973. He was head of that department from June 1974 to December 1975. He also served as Dean of the Faculty of Medical Sciences between February 1976 and July 1991. In 1979 he was appointed senior lecturer. Eight years later, he was appointed professor of neuropsychology and it was the discontinuance of that professorship which led to the law suit.