TRHA ordered to compensate fired lab technician

THE Tobago Regional Health Authority (TRHA) has been ordered to compensate a laboratory technician for breach of contract and unpaid salary and benefits.

Justice Eleanor Joye Donaldson-Honeywell ordered the TRHA on Monday to pay Trudy-Ann Taylor-Kidd compensation of $109,611.84 plus interest from November 13, 2017 to Monday.

Taylor-Kidd, a Jamaican, moved to Tobago in 2011 to work with the TRHA as a medical laboratory technician II under a one-year contract.

At the end of the contract, her employment was renewed twice for two-year periods with the expressed terms that her monthly salary would be $8,925 and she would receive allowances totalling $4,047.

She was also entitled to a gratuity, part of which was paid to her after she filed her lawsuit. After her contract ended in 2016, although she was not given a new written contract, Taylor-Kidd continued to work for the TRHA, was rostered and paid her salary.

Her lawsuit claimed her relationship with the TRHA became strained because she and others were being asked to do certain tasks they felt were unsafe for patients.

They did not comply and made their concerns known, since they claimed what they were being asked to do could have negative consequences for patients, including death.

The claim also said Taylor-Kidd was asked to be on call, which she said she couldn’t do.

She was offered a backdated contract for one year, until October 2017, and a complaint was made against her for being disrespectful. She was also removed from active duty for failing to sign the backdated contract, which she claimed she did not receive.

After she was de-rostered, she was not paid, and started legal proceedings against the TRHA, which indicated she had been terminated in November 2017.

She said she always got exceptional grades in her performance appraisals and expected her contract to be renewed.

The authority argued she refused to sign a new contract and pleaded there were allegations of misconduct against her which led to her termination.

In her decision, the judge said based on the facts argued before her, Taylor-Kidd’s contract of employment was breached, her dismissal was unlawful and the disciplinary process was unfair.

She also said Taylor-Kidd proved there was a new contract in place after the 2016 contract expired and there was no evidence that she was on a “work at will” engagement as suggested by the TRHA.

Donaldson-Honeywell also said there was no indication in her termination letter that she was being sanctioned for misconduct and no evidence she rejected a new one-year contract.

In ordering that she was entitled to compensation for the loss of employment security and income, she refused to grant exemplary damages saying the TRHA’s conduct was not so outrageous to warrant an award for stress and victimisation, as Taylor-Kidd alleged.

“It is clear that there were tensions between the parties…Mistakes were made in the process of managing these difficulties,” the judge said.

Taylor-Kidd was represented by attorneys Matthew Gayle and Crystal Paul. Lennox Marcelle and Sherese Alfred represented the TRHA.