For the second time this year, luxury resort Sandy Lane Hotel has been ordered to pay a former employee for unfair dismissal.
The latest ruling was handed down on Wednesday by the Employment Rights Tribunal (ERT) which ordered that former laundry supervisor Alfred Branch, who had been employed at the west coast property for 11 years, be paid just over $54 000 by December 15, 2022.
Branch’s lawyer Rhea Cheltenham and attorney-at-law Michael Koeiman who represented Sandy Lane had previously agreed to a basic sum of approximately $50 000.
Sandy Lane terminated Branch in February 2014, claiming that a letter he wrote the previous month, seeking a meeting with the chairman to discuss outstanding concerns, contained language that management deemed threatening.
However, the three-member ERT rejected that contention in a ruling that was delivered by chairman, retired Court of Appeal Justice Christopher Blackman.
“On a consideration of all the material presented, the tribunal holds that the letter of 27th January, 2014 by the claimant to the general manager Randall Wilkie was not intended as a threat to the good name of the respondent and that the consequential dismissal was unfair,” Justice Blackman said.
“The tribunal orders the respondent Sandy Lane Hotel Company Limited to pay to Alfred Branch the claimant the sum of $54 734.34 by December 15, 2022,” added the head of the panel that includes industrial relations consultant Deighton Marshall and trade unionist Frederick Forde.
The sum includes a basic award of $26 030.07; a payment of $23 871.53 in benefits entitlement; and wages, in lieu of notice, of $4 732.74.
Justice Blackman noted that the tribunal is empowered, when it finds that an employee has been unfairly dismissed, to consider reinstatement or re-engagement. Under the Employment Rights Act, where neither reinstatement nor re-engagement is ordered the tribunal shall award compensation.
“In this matter, the claimant has indicated that he was not seeking reinstatement or re-engagement by the respondent,” Justice Blackman told the virtual sitting.
The tribunal chair noted that counsel for Branch and Sandy Lane, in a joint submission dated October 31, 2022, agreed that if he was successful in his claim for unfair dismissal he would be entitled to a basic award in the sum of $50 001.60.
However, the ERT rejected a separate submission by Cheltenham, dated November 1, 2022, for an additional amount based on service points and meal allowance that had been provided to Branch during his employment.
The ERT ruled that to grant that request would amount to “double dipping” because in the joint submission the panel had already been provided with income tax returns for six years, “which makes it clear to the tribunal that the value of the benefits received had been taken into account”.
“Moreover, the submission is not supported by any legal or other authorities. In the result, the submission is not entertained,” Justice Blackman said, noting that the quasi-judicial body had arrived at the basic sum awarded to the former hotel employee using his weekly wage, at the time of his termination, of $788.79.
Both Branch and Sandy Lane were also ordered to bear their own legal costs.
In March this year, the Caribbean Court of Justice ruled that the Sandy Lane Hotel wrongfully dismissed three of its employees in 2012 and ordered the luxury hotel in St James to pay the former workers – Juliana Cato, Wayne Johnson and Charmaine Poyer – the damages they had claimed back in 2012, as well as foot the bill for their legal costs.
When asked about the damages the ex-hotel staffers were claiming, the attorney for the company Satcha Kissoon said it would not be appropriate to comment on that as a final figure had to be agreed between the two sides, failing which the matter would have to return to the Magistrates’ Court for a determination.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb
