The High Court in Mombasa has ordered Schenker Limited to pay its former Branch Manager Sh5.8 million over constructive dismissal following alleged humiliation, hostility and frustrations.
Justice Ocharo Kebira directed the logistics firm to pay Russian National Larissa Hart Sh5.895,832 for the humiliation, mistreatment and hostility that led to her resignation in 2017.
“The Respondent (Schenker Limited shall pay the Claimant (Hart) three months' salary in lieu of notice, in the sum of Sh1,527,000, compensation for unfair constructive dismissal under section 49(1)(c) of the Employment Act, equivalent to eight months' gross salary, in the sum of sh. 4,072,000 and Sh296,832 in respect of 17.4950 days of untaken annual leave,” said Justice Kebira.
Hart told Justice Ocharo that the slow accumulation of humiliation, exclusion and unexplained hostility, by the company’s Managing Director Darren Brown left her with no choice but to resign.
Hart served as Schenker Limited Mombasa Branch Manager for four years from 2013 where she earned Sh509,000 per month.
Hart who holds a Russian Passport said that within a span of about a year, her working life was transformed from one of cordiality and cooperation into one of public shouting, unexplained sidelining, an unwarranted disciplinary warning issued without a hearing.
She said that the final nail in the coffin was the refusal to grant her permission to attend her 10-year-old son's swimming competition in South Africa.
Hart accused Brown of allegedly publicly humiliating her during management conference calls, on March 8, 2016 and September 14, 2016, by shouting at her and embarrassing her without cause and was made to report to a junior employee instead of directly to the Managing Director,
She said that in February 2017, the company declined, without adequate explanation, to issue her a letter confirming her employment to the South African High Commission, a document she needed to obtain a visa to accompany her son to a national swimming competition in South Africa.
Hart said despite writing an open letter addressed to nine Executives of the said company, no response was accorded.
However, in defense, Schenker denied that Brown had ever mistreated, humiliated or embarrassed her, terming the allegations as calculated to taint his image.
Brown said that Hart’s conduct amounted, at worst, to firm management of a difficult operational period occasioned by the Standard Gauge Railway's (SGR) disruption of its Mombasa freight business.
Brown also said that Hart's title and pay were never touched, and that she simply resigned, belatedly dressing up an ordinary departure in the language of constructive dismissal.
The company filed for a counter-claim of Sh1,527,000 being three months' salary in lieu of notice which was dismissed by Justice Kebira.
In his judgment, Justice Kebira said that the two public humiliations, the unilateral and unexplained alteration of the Hart's reporting line in a manner inconsistent with her seniority and contract, the issuance of a first and final disciplinary sanction without a hearing, the studied silence in the face of her repeated and increasingly urgent written appeals, including an appeal copied to nine senior regional and international executives that drew not a single response, and the refusal of the visa letter amounted to constructive dismissal.
“I find that the trust and confidence necessary to sustain the employment relationship had, by February 2017, been destroyed, and that this destruction supports, rather than merely accompanies, the finding of constructive dismissal already made,” said Justice Kebira.
