A Review of Significant Labour and Employment Cases in 2014

With the mandate given to the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) under section 245C (1) (f) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, as amended, to consider and apply best international labour practice when adjudicating on matters within its jurisdictional competence, 2014 saw a significant number of court cases handed down by the NICN highlighting the need for a constant interplay of equity and fair play in the workplace.

Protection of employees in cases of unfair labour practices -

The facts of MR. SHITTU HABIB v CORAL INTERNATIONAL LIMITED (Unreported Suit No: NIC/PHC/79/2013 delivered on June 26, 2014) and ABEL ABEL v TREVI FOUNDATION NIGERIA LIMITED (Unreported Suit No: NIC/PHC/55/2013 delivered on June 26, 2014) both present interesting scenarios where the NICN intervened to afford equity to a worker injured in the course of work and whom the employer, in an apparent bid to avoid liability to pay compensatory damages, turned around to contend was not under its employment. The NICN held that an employee need not necessarily prove his employment by a written employment letter to maintain a claim against an employer. In both cases, the defendant company contended that the injured employee was not its employee as at the time of the accident. The court, in both cases, noted that even though the claimant did not show any letter of employment from the defendant, a contract of employment could be properly inferred from the conduct of the parties; in Abel’s case, the fact that the claimant had been doing some work for the defendant for which the defendant paid an “allowance” to the claimant, coupled with the issuance of a work identity card to the claimant.

The court further invoked its equitable jurisdiction to assuage the hapless employee in Habib’s case by awarding monetary compensation to enable him obtain medical care to wit surgery to remove metal from his leg.

Also worthy of note is the commendable effort of the NICN at expanding the hitherto seeming inflexible principles of common law (deeply ingrained in the nation’s labour jurisprudence) to accommodate far-reaching results for the aggrieved employee. Thus, in GODWIN OKOSI OMOUDU v PROFESSOR AIZE OBAYAN & ANOR (Unreported Suit No: NICN/AB/03/2012 judgment delivered on October 10, 2014) , where it was established that an employer of labour, without just and established cause, impugned the integrity of an employee and based on this impugnation, went ahead to peremptorily terminate his employment , the NICN did not only condemn the act as an unfair labour practice, but went further to hold that such a detestable practice cannot be adequately compensated by the right to payment of a month’s salary in lieu of notice which the wrongfully terminated employee would ordinarily have been entitled to. Relying on applicable provisions of the 1999 Constitution [as altered]and the National Industrial Court Act 2006 which enable the court to award damages as a relief for the unfair labour practice of unfair dismissal, and further stating the position that the court can take guidance from the more elaborate provisions of foreign statutes as to appropriate remedies when a proof of unfair dismissal is established, the court awarded the claimant 5 months salaries as general damages, in addition to an award of one month salary in lieu of notice.

Also, in THE REGISTERED TRUSTEES OF UNION BANK &ANOR v UNION BANK OF NIGERIA & ORS (Unreported Suit No.NICN/LA/555/2012, judgment delivered on October 17, 2014), the court held that the practice of payment of 13th month (ex gratia) salary having been consistently and regularly carried on uninterrupted for a period of 23 years, had become a custom between claimant and the defendant to such an extent that a party could seek its enforcement through judicial process.

Giving lucid conceptual clarifications on, inter alia, the power of the employer to suspend and or dismiss an employee; legal consequences of ‘suspension’; and, when an allegation of conflict of interest can be made against an employee, and the corresponding duty on the employer to establish the allegation of conflict against the dismissed employee, the court in MR. PETER OLASUNKANMI ATOKI v ECOBANK NIGERIA LTD (Unreported Suit No. NIC/LA/103/2011, delivered on June 12, 2014) held that the defendant bank failed to establish the conflict of interest and professional misconduct against the claimant to the satisfaction of the court.

Recognising the statutory/reserved rights of the employer to declare situations of involuntary and permanent loss of employment caused by an excess of manpower (See section 20(3), Labour Act), the NICN made a case for compliance with the letters of the applicable labour law on the requisite condition precedent to declaring redundancy in the case of MRS. WINIFRED OMAGE v NAIRDA NIGERIA LIMITED &ANOR. (Unreported Suit No: NICN/LA/63/2013, delivered on September 30, 2014).

In Talotuwan Sunday v Zenith Bank Plc. (Unreported Suit No: NICN/ABJ/54/2013, Judgment delivered 18th of December, 2014), the complaint form with which the action was initiated was not authenticated by the claimant or his Legal Practitioner. This would ordinarily have attracted a stiff sanction of having the action predicated thereon pronounced void, arguably in consonance with an aspect of the rule in OKAFOR v NWEKE (See (2007) 10 NWLR (PT. 1043) 521), but (here) the NICN was lenient in holding that the statement of facts (properly signed) superseded the complaint form, and as such the action was competent.

Basking in the fervour of a new wave of labour-grievance remedial process that is arguably ‘pro-employee’ (and, considerably reduced legalism), it is pertinent to mention that the cases of AWODUSI GBENGA & ORS v TOTAL DATA LIMITED (Unreported Suit No: NICN/LA/490/2013 , judgment delivered on August 24, 2014) and MR. OSAMOTA MACAULAY ADEKUNLE v UNITED BANK FOR AFRICA PLC (Unreported Suit No: NICN/IB/20/2012 judgment delivered on May 21, 2014) do not necessarily enthuse this position.

In the former, the claimants instituted the action in a representative capacity. There were 141 named claimants but only the 1st claimant testified for the claimants. The 4th claimant, who was listed on the list of witnesses to be called, was not called to testify eventually. The court rightly noted that even though all the claimants need not be called to testify, it was important that documents relating to each of the claimants be exhibited before the Court. That could have been achieved by any of the witnesses since the suit was brought in a representative capacity. The rationale in itself is unassailable. The claimants were employed vide individual and separable contracts of employment with differing salaries and emoluments, conditions of service, and so on. Only the 1st claimant was called to testify and the court even had to invoke its equitable jurisdiction to rely on the documents frontloaded but which were never tendered in evidence to avail the 4th claimant the relief sought on the substantive suit. There was no such document before the court to avail the remaining 142 claimants. Thus the court had to hold that: “Failure of the other Claimants except 1stand 4th to lead evidence in proof of their claims has fatally damaged same…The claims of the 1st and 4th Claimants succeed in part while those of the other claimants fail and are dismissed accordingly.”

In Osamota’s case, the claimant only sought declaratory reliefs which, by the state of the law, cannot be executed being merely declaratory as to rights and obligations of parties. But that was not the only pitfall. The specifics were not clearly stated, nor established. Thus, the Court chided that even though the claimant sought a declaration that he was entitled to “all his entitlements, salaries, allowances, bonuses, emoluments and other perquisites of office” from September 17, 2009 when he was suspended to the date of this judgment”, those were not shown in specific terms. As the court pithily put it: “I must stress that since the claimant’s “entitlements, salaries, allowances, bonuses, emoluments and other perquisites of office” have not been proved before this Court, this Court cannot make any order in their regard.” Jurisdiction, properly so-called: The circumscribed subject-matter jurisdiction of the NICN as an exclusive labour dispute resolution forum came up for consideration in a few cases in the year under review. In many of the decisions handed down on this point, the NICN reiterated that its prescribed jurisdiction does not extend to matters with claims dealing with tax, pensions and allied issues that the aggrieved employee often claims as ancillary to his principal claims. Thus, in MISS ODIETTE HOPE v JOPA ENERGY LTD (Unreported Suit No: NICN/LA/408/2012, judgment delivered on March 31, 2014), the court declined the invitation to exercise jurisdiction over a tax related relief contained in the claim before the court. Similar decisions were handed down in GANIYU KOLAPO RAFIU v SARA FOODS LTD (Unreported Suit No: