DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A for­mer THA sec­re­tary lost his law­suit over be­ing fired as a spe­cial ad­vis­er to Sports Min­is­ter Sham­fa Cud­joe al­most two months af­ter he took up the po­si­tion.

In a judg­ment late last month, High Court Judge West­min James dis­missed the wrong­ful dis­missal case brought by Huey New­ton Cadette against the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. Cadette took up the po­si­tion on a six-month con­tract in No­vem­ber 2018. In Jan­u­ary 2019, he was ter­mi­nat­ed for his fail­ure to dis­close that he si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly held the po­si­tion of co­or­di­na­tor of the Com­mu­ni­ty Con­sul­ta­tive Plan­ning Unit of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s Di­vi­sion of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment, and Labour.

Cadette filed the law­suit as he claimed that he had dis­closed his con­sult­ing role with the THA to Cud­joe be­fore tak­ing up the ap­point­ment. He claimed dam­ages for breach of con­tract, wrong­ful dis­missal, loss to his rep­u­ta­tion, and for the stress, anx­i­ety, and em­bar­rass­ment he claimed he suf­fered.

He al­so claimed $440,800 in dam­ages, which rep­re­sents the salary and ben­e­fits he would have re­ceived had his con­tract not been ter­mi­nat­ed and if it (the con­tract) was ex­tend­ed af­ter the ini­tial six-month pe­ri­od ex­pired. The min­istry and Cud­joe chal­lenged his claim as they al­leged that the dis­clo­sure came al­most a month af­ter he com­menced his du­ties at the min­istry and around the time he re­signed from the THA.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice James ruled that he did not be­lieve Cadette’s claims. He point­ed out that Cadette did not in­clude the THA po­si­tion in his cur­ricu­lum vi­tae (CV) that was sub­mit­ted be­fore he was in­ter­viewed for the post. Jus­tice James ruled that Cadette’s omis­sion was suf­fi­cient to war­rant his dis­missal, as he not­ed that em­ploy­ees have a le­gal du­ty not to act in a man­ner that would de­stroy or dam­age the re­la­tion­ship of trust and con­fi­dence with their em­ploy­er.

Jus­tice James al­so agreed with Cud­joe over con­flict­ing in­ter­ests with the two posts. He al­so point­ed out that Cadette would be in breach of pub­lic ser­vice reg­u­la­tions if he held two full-time pub­lic ser­vice jobs si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly. Jus­tice James or­dered Cadette to pay the State $65,580 in le­gal costs.

Cadette was rep­re­sent­ed by Farai Hove Ma­sai­sai and Bernelle-Joy La Fou­cade. The AG’s Of­fice was rep­re­sent­ed by Shali­ni Singh, Janique Mitchell, and Vin­cent Jar­dine.