Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Two con­nect­ed prop­er­ty de­vel­op­ment com­pa­nies and their chair­man have been or­dered to pay al­most $1 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion to a for­mer se­nior em­ploy­ee, who claimed he was wrong­ful­ly ter­mi­nat­ed af­ter be­ing false­ly ac­cused of dis­hon­esty.

In a re­cent judg­ment, High Court Judge Robin Mo­hammed or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion for Michael Khan as he up­held a law­suit against Capildeo Lands Ltd, Prism Trust and Fi­nance Com­pa­ny Ltd and their chair­man and pur­port­ed own­er Carl­ton Reis.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, be­tween 2016 and 2017, Khan was ap­point­ed man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Capildeo Lands and project di­rec­tor/chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Prism.

Khan claimed that in April 2019, he was re­moved from the po­si­tions in both com­pa­nies af­ter Reis made al­le­ga­tions against him and de­mand­ed his res­ig­na­tion based on a pur­port­ed au­dit re­port.

Khan, who was 64-years-old at the time, claimed that he was forced to hand over the keys to his of­fice and a com­pa­ny car be­fore be­ing phys­i­cal­ly es­cort­ed out of the build­ing in front of fel­low em­ploy­ees.

Through his lawyers, Bryan Mc­Cutcheon and An­dre Rud­der, of JD Sel­l­i­er and Com­pa­ny, Khan filed the case al­leg­ing that he was con­struc­tive­ly dis­missed as he nev­er re­ceived of­fi­cial cor­re­spon­dence con­firm­ing his ter­mi­na­tion.

They claimed that the com­pa­nies were re­quired to give him six months’ no­tice or sub­ject him to dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion be­fore ter­mi­na­tion.

They al­so con­tend­ed that the com­pa­nies and Reis made prej­u­di­cial state­ments to as­so­ci­at­ed en­ti­ties, which pre­vent­ed him from get­ting a new job.

The com­pa­nies and Reis de­nied any wrong­do­ing, as they claimed that they found dis­crep­an­cies with their fi­nances dur­ing Khan’s tenure and he (Khan) failed to ad­dress them when con­front­ed.

Reis ad­mit­ted that he ac­cused Khan of be­ing a thief in the pri­vate meet­ing but de­nied de­fam­ing him.

Reis and the com­pa­nies claimed that they sug­gest­ed that Khan vol­un­tar­i­ly de­part in­stead of in­volv­ing the po­lice and Khan said he would seek le­gal ad­vice.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Mo­hammed ruled that he was con­struc­tive­ly dis­missed as claimed.

“The de­fen­dants’ ac­tions, in­clud­ing hold­ing an emer­gency board meet­ing with­out Khan’s knowl­edge or par­tic­i­pa­tion, con­duct­ing an au­dit with­out pro­vid­ing him with an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond, and de­mand­ing his res­ig­na­tion with­out jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, demon­strate a fun­da­men­tal breach of the em­ploy­ment con­tracts,” Jus­tice Mo­hammed said.

He al­so found that Reis de­famed Khan and that the com­pa­nies should be held vic­ar­i­ous­ly li­able.

“The de­fen­dant failed to pro­vide the court with an io­ta of ev­i­dence to demon­strate these al­le­ga­tions were true, and al­so filed a counter-claim al­leg­ing Khan com­plet­ed fraud, theft, dis­hon­esty, neg­li­gence and breach­es of fidu­cia­ry and statu­to­ry du­ties,” Jus­tice Mo­hammed said.

Not­ing that the de­fen­dants failed to apol­o­gise or re­tract the al­le­ga­tion, he said: “The court finds these ac­tions to be high-hand­ed.”

In as­sess­ing the com­pen­sa­tion for Khan, Jus­tice Mo­hammed or­dered $240,000 for breach of con­tract which was based on his joint month­ly salary of $40,000 and the six-month no­tice pe­ri­od.

He al­so or­dered ad­di­tion­al com­pen­sa­tion for his un­used va­ca­tion, award­ed sev­er­ance pay, and $100,000 in ex­em­plary dam­ages for the com­pa­nies’ “out­ra­geous con­duct.”

“The court there­fore con­sid­ers it in­deed ap­pro­pri­ate to award ex­em­plary dam­ages to send a strong sig­nal of con­dem­na­tion, un­der­scor­ing the need for ac­count­abil­i­ty and re­spect in em­ploy­ment re­la­tion­ships,” he said.

He was al­so award­ed $400,000 for defama­tion based on the dam­age done to his pro­fes­sion­al rep­u­ta­tion and in­ter­est on the com­pen­sa­tion.

Reis and the com­pa­nies, who were rep­re­sent­ed by Walede Michael Cop­pin and Cherneil Pe­ters, were al­so or­dered to pay sig­nif­i­cant le­gal costs.