Francis Adesegun Katto Vs Central Bank Of Nigeria (1999)

LAWGLOBAL HUB Lead Judgment Report

UWAIFO, JSC

The Court of Appeal, Kaduna Judicial Division, on 7 June, 1993, gave judgment on an appeal from a rather simple suit decided by Agora J, on 4 September, 1987, sitting at the High Court, Minna. A number of Issues were raised on that appeal: three were in respect of an alleged wrongful termination of employment and five in respect of defamation said to emanate from the letter which conveyed the termination. It thus meant that the suit was based on two causes of action, whereof in the amended statement of claim the plaintiff finally claimed the following reliefs:-

(a) Declaration that the defendant’s purported termination of plaintiff’s appointment on 1st June, 1984 by virtue of defendant’s letter of that date was wrong in law, null and void and of no effect.

(b) Order on the defendant to re-instate the plaintiff to the former position in the defendant’s employment before the wrong (sic) termination with all necessary entitlements that would have accrued to him had he not be (sic) so wrongly (sic) terminated.

OR

A declaration that plaintiff is entitled to gratuity and pension according to the defendant (sic) Staff Manual AND an Order to the defendant to pay him his gratuities immediately and his pension to start to run at his 45th year anniversary.

(c) N200,000.00 (Two hundred thousand naira) special and general damages for the wrongful termination of the plaintiff’s appointment which claim include (sic) plaintiff’s salary up to voluntary retirement age if plaintiff is not re-instated.

AND

(d) N100,000.00 (One hundred thousand naira), general (aggravated) damages for the defamation suffered by the plaintiff as a result Of the defendant’s wrongful termination.

The learned trial judge gave judgment for the plaintiff. As for the claim based on wrongful termination of appointment, he ordered that the plaintiff be reinstated to his employment (as Senior Manager grade level 13) and given all the entitlements due to him including promotion prospect.

In the alternative, the following orders were made, (a) The defendant should immediately pay the plaintiff his “gratuity to an amount equal to his annual salary when he was 15 years in the defendant’s service, and this amount should progress by 10% per annum for each completed year of his service after the first 15 years.” (b) The plaintiff should be paid his pension when he would be 45 years of age. In regard to damages for defamation, the learned trial Judge awarded the plaintiff N70,000.00.

In the appeal against the judgment, the defendant, as already indicated, raised eight issues for determination. The two most relevant for the purposes of the present appeals before this court were:(a) whether the statement of claim disclosed a cause of action in respect of the Claim for wrongful termination of employment- and the effect on the award of damages, and (b) whether there is a cause of action known as defamation as a result of wrongful termination or whether wrongful termination per se, can constitute defamation.

The Court of Appeal appeared to have answered issue (a) above-stated but did not answer issue (b). As regards the said issue (a), it observed inter alia, Per Okunola JCA, who read the leading judgment:

“………….I have examined exhibit 7 and I am satisfied that there are two modes of termination created in exhibit 7 (chapters 3 & 5) dealing with the two situations, Clause 3 of Chapters 5 of exhibit 7 deals with the first situation where either party just wants to sever the relationship in which case there is no requirement of the employer or employee having committed any or some misbehaviour listed in Clause 2 of Chapter 5 of exhibit 7. It will appear on the face of exhibit 8 that the appellant as reiterated by the counsel has adopted the latter option by payment in lieu of notice… In consequence, I hold that on the face of exhibit 8, the respondent could be lawfully terminated by the appellant under clause 3 of Chapter 5 of exhibit 7 by payment of one month (sic) salary in lieu of notice.”