[Civil Law- Appeal allowed: Judge’s dismissal of A.’s claim for loss and damages for wrongful termination of contract of employment set aside. A.’s claim for B$180,000 allowed.
Costs: R. to pay A.’s costs below and on appeal, to be taxed if not agreed.
A. employed on five-year fixed term contract: no express termination clause; incomplete/missing text. R’s letter to A. of termination of employment asserted A. redundant. Now, R asked Court to imply term in contract of right to termination of employment without cause on notice/payment in lieu.
Implying term in contract as a matter of fact: test is ‘necessity’; reasonableness is a necessary requirement, but not of itself sufficient to imply a term.
Judge erred in relying on s. 92(f) of Evidence Act, Cap.108; written contract not required for contract of employment. Judge erred: in considering terms in contracts of employment of two other employees; finding them to have ‘standard and uniform’ terms; and implying the termination clause there provided into A.’s contracts of employment.
Those contracts were different from each other and were not standard and uniform terms. No evidence A. had any knowledge of any of those terms. Term implied by judge, that Respondent had right to terminate Appellant’s employment without cause, not justified in law and failed to meet ‘necessity’ test of implication of terms in fact]