The United Kingdom Privy Council has upheld a Court of Appeal ruling that the National Water Commission committed no breach when the post of former employee Balteano Duffus was abolished.

Duffus, 60, was director of commercial operations in 1989 when he was reassigned to the post of director of corporate planning - finance. However, that post was abolished in May 1990. Duffus was sent on 105 days pre-retirement leave with effect from June 1, 1990 and his retirement commenced on October 30, 1990.

English lawyer Stanley Brodie, Q.C., and Jamaican lawyer André Earle, of the law firm Rattray Patterson Rattray, represented the NWC at the Privy Council hearing. They argued that the Court of Appeal was correct in its finding and the Privy Council agreed and, on May 17, dismissed Duffus' appeal with cost.

Duffus had sued the NWC and Dr. Wayne Reid, former chairman of the board of directors of the NWC, in March 1992, seeking damages for breach of contract. He sought damages for wrongful termination of employment.

Entitled damage

The Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that Duffus was entitled to damages in a sum equivalent to the salary he would have earned for the period from October 30, 1990 to December 1993.

The judge said the sum was to include all allowances that Duffus was in receipt of up to his unlawful retirement. He was to be paid for all vacation leave for which he would have been entitled had he been working during that period. The retirement was to be computed on the basis that the last post he held was that of director of commercial operations, up to December 31, 1993.

The NWC appealed and the Court of Appeal, comprising former president of the Court of Appeal Ian Forte, Mr. Justice Algernon Smith and Mr. Justice Karl Harrison, heard the appeal and ruled in favour of the NWC. The court found that the action against the NWC was statute barred because the NWC was a public authority and the action was filed in excess of one year of the cause of action for wrongful dismissal. The court found that Duffus was being paid a monthly pension, therefore he was stopped from contending that the NWC had wrongfully terminated his employment.