Employment Relations Court rules in favour of Kainamoli in FRCS case

The Employment Relations Court has ruled that Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) did not comply with the variation clause of its former employee’s contract of employment by failing to give prior notice of varying the notice clause.

This is in the case of Angie Kainamoli who took FRCS to the Court for making her redundant for structural reasons, which she claimed was a breach of her contract.

Ms Kainamoli, through her lawyer Damodaran Nair, filed a writ of summons alleging that FRCS, by making her services redundant, acted in breach of her contract of employment and contrary to the provisions of the Employment Relations Promulgation 2007.

She sought a declaration that the redundancy was unjust and unlawful and for orders to recover loss of earnings as well as loss of future earnings, general damages, interest, and costs.

Ms Kainamoli, after several years of employment with FRCS, was appointed by FRCS as a senior properties and assets management officer on a three-year contract commencing from June 2, 2015, until June 1, 2018.

Before the expiry of the contract, Ms Kainamoli was made redundant by a letter dated November 15, 2017, which gave her 44 days’ notice prior to dismissal on December 29, 2017.

Ms Kainamoli treated the act of making her redundant as a breach of her employment contract, declaring inter alia that there was no reasonable cause of justification to terminate her employment on that basis and that her employment contract was arbitrarily terminated when her position and key responsibilities remained an integral part of the establishment.

Ms Kainamoli was employed by FRCS in 2005 in the training department and moved up the ranks within the Human Resource Department and seconded to properties section at the Finance Department after which she applied for and was appointed to the position of senior properties and assets management officer.

After various events taking place, Ms Kainamoli received a letter dated September 21, 2017, summoning her for a meeting with the management for a show cause which was to do with a lock breaking incident that occurred in the FRCS Lautoka office.

In the show cause, Ms Kainamoli had stated that she was based at the Suva office and the incident in Lautoka was not immediately brought to her notice.

On November 15, 2017, Ms Kainamoli was informed by a letter that she was made redundant for structural reasons.

She claimed that the information concerning her redundancy was not provided to the Ministry of Employment.

FRCS made the employee redundant in a notice of a month’s time and failed to give the notice as stated in the contract which was a period of three months.

In the ruling, Employment Relations Court Judge, Justice Javed Mansoor awarded Ms Kainamoli damages equivalent to the aggregate of three months of Ms Kainamoli’s last drawn wages together with accrued FNPF benefits less the sum paid to her as redundancy.

He ordered that the payment shall be made to Ms Kainamoli by the FRCS within 21 days.

FRCS was also directed to pay Ms Kainamoli costs summarily assessed by Court in the sum of $2000 within 21 days.