Nigerian Breweries PLC V. Maurice Ikyarkyase & Ors (2015)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report – COURT OF APPEAL

HABEEB ADEWALE OLUMUYIWA ABIRU, J.C.A. (Delivering the Leading Judgment)

This is an appeal against the judgment of the High Court of Kaduna State in Suit No KDH/KAD/127/2004 delivered by Honorable Justice Hanatu A. L. Balogun on the 5th of June, 2007. The action in the lower Court was commenced by the Respondents, as plaintiffs, against the Appellant, as defendant, and their claims by an amended statement of claim dated the 3rd of April, 2006 were for:

i. A declaration that the outplacement exercise of the Defendant is redundancy exercise which entitles each of the Plaintiffs to the payment of redundancy benefits in pursuance of Article 27 of the Defendant’s Employees’ Handbook.

ii. A declaration that the Plaintiffs’ right to the payment of their gratuity and redundancy benefits is separate and distinct under the Defendant’s Employees Handbook and in pursuance of Section 20 of the Labour Act, 1990 and that the said rights are not in the alternative to each other.

iii. A declaration that the ex-gratia payment by the Defendant to each of the Plaintiffs was not payment in satisfaction of the Plaintiff’s

1

rights to payment of redundancy benefits.

iv. An order for the Defendant to pay to the Plaintiffs redundancy benefits in pursuance of Article 27 of the Defendant’s Employees’ Handbook and the collective agreements dated the 2nd and 3rd day of May, 2000 and 10th of September, 200l.

v. An order for the Defendant to pay to the Plaintiffs who were outplaced in the year 2000 their one month’s salary in lieu of notice.

vi. Interest at the rate of 10% on the judgment sum from the date of judgment until same is settled.

The case of the Respondents on the pleadings was that they were employees of the Appellant at the Appellant’s Kaduna Office and they were each issued a copy of the Appellant’s Employees’ Handbook at the time of employment containing the terms and conditions of their employment and the rules and regulations on general matters and that the terms and conditions in the Employees’ Handbook constituted a binding contract between each of them and the Appellant. It was their case that by the contents of the Employees’ Handbook, the recognized modes of cessation of employment were resignation, termination,

2

summary dismissal, retirement and redundancy and that sometime in 2000 and 2001, the Appellant carried out a re-organization, restructuring and re-engineering of its business processes and procedures which necessitated their being laid off by the Appellant in an exercise called “outplacement exercise”. It was their case that for all intents and purposes the said ” outplacement exercise” was really a redundancy exercise pursuant to the provisions of Section 20 (3) of the Labour Act and that at the time of their ” outplacement ” each of them had been in the employment of the Appellant for over five years and they were thus all qualified for payment of gratuity upon their leaving the services of the Appellant and that this right to payment of gratuity had accrued before their ” outplacement ” and was different and separate from their right to payment of redundancy benefits under the provisions of the Labour Act and not in the alternative.

It was the case of the Respondents that by an agreement between the National Union of Food, Beverage and Tobacco Employees and the Management of the Appellant on the 2nd and 3rd of May, 2000 and 10th of September,