Former General Manager of ATL Pension Fund, Catherine Barber and the Industrial Disputes Tribunal (IDT) have obtained a favourable judgment at the Court of Appeal in their longstanding legal battle against the ATL Pension Fund Trustees.

The judgment handed down by Justice Hilary Phillips came to light on Friday.

The appeal arose out of Catherine Barber’s dismissal from employment with the ATL Group Pension Fund Trustee Nominee Limited. The IDT had ruled that the dismissal was unjustifiable and made an award in Barber’s favour.

The ATL Pension Fund company was founded by Gorstew Limited whose chairman was the recently deceased Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart. It was formed to administer pension funds for close to 5,000 employees of the ATL and Sandals Group.

Catherine Barber was the general manager of the ATL pension fund company, a position she held for 11 years until 2011. The company is managed by a board of trustees and a board of directors appointed by Gorstew. Barber was not a member of either board.

In November 2010, an audit was conducted of the pension fund which queried whether Gorstew’s consent was secured before the distribution of surpluses for the years 1998, 2002, 2005 and 2008 from the pension fund.

INTEGRITY OF AUTHORISATION LETTERS QUESTIONED

After being invited to a meeting on December 2010 to discuss the issue, Barber produced four letters signed by Dr Jeffery Pyne, Gorstew’s managing director, which indicated that Gorstew’s consent had indeed been obtained.

Gorstew queried the integrity of those letters and so Barber was sent on a leave of absence on January 13, 2011, for 14 days which was extended a number of times thereafter.

Barber was ultimately dismissed by way of letter dated April 15, 2011. The reason given for her termination was a “loss of trust and confidence in (her) ability to loyally serve the interests of the company”.

She was not pleased with her dismissal and conciliation meetings came to naught. The dispute was thereafter referred to the IDT for resolution by the Minister of Labour and Social Security.

The IDT concluded that: “The Tribunal is of the view that there was no justification to have dismissed Miss Barber in the way that she was without an explanation as to why, by having the police search her home the following day, without her permission and by being dismissed without being given a chance to explain either of the above allegations, or to invoke the protection of the Labour Relations Code (LRC) in her favour.”

The company filed an application for leave to apply for judicial review of the IDT’s decision which was heard before Justice Bryan Sykes (as he was then) who granted the application on limited bases.

The company subsequently filed notice and grounds of appeal on August 16, 2016 since it was dissatisfied with Justice Georgiana Fraser’s decision. There were 10 grounds of appeal.

The appeal against Justice Fraser’s decision dated August 12, 2016 was dismissed with costs awarded to both the IDT and Barber.

At the Court of Appeal level, Justice Phillips wrote: “The company has not succeeded on any of the grounds of appeal. In all the circumstances I would dismiss the appeal and award costs to the IDT and Miss Barber to be taxed if not agreed.

“I wish to acknowledge and apologise for the lengthy delay in the delivery of judgment in this matter. It was caused by the many administrative deficiencies which plague our justice system with which we are all too familiar. Although it was unavoidable, it is indeed regrettable.”

Court of Appeal Judges Marva McDonald-Bishop and Paulette Williams concurred with Phillip’s reasoning and conclusion.