St. Andrew's School has been ordered by the Court of Appeal to pay over $26,000 to a former employee after it lost an appeal against a ruling by the Industrial Tribunal.
The private school on the eastern side of New Providence made Margo Albury redundant in August 2009 after advising employees several months earlier that it would be cutting back on non-faculty staff in order to remain solvent in the face of financial challenges.
Albury had been employed as a personal assistant to the principal at the school for 11 years under a series of fixed term contracts. In January of 2009 she had let the school know that she would wish to renew her contract, as per custom at the school.
She launched proceedings before the Industrial Tribunal in November 2009 after her former employer refused to pay her compensation after making her job redundant seven months later.
St. Andrew's took the position that no compensation was owed.
In a letter to Albury dated June 2009,the chairman of St. Andrew's School told her that severance pay "does not arise" in her case as she was employed on a fixed term contract, and had been advised in January that she would be terminated in August.
The Court of Appeal did not agree, instead largely siding with the Tribunal's original ruling.
In its judgment on the matter, the Court of Appeal had said that the key issues to be determined were whether Albury could be deemed to have been "continuously employed" by the school, and if she was entitled to redundancy pay.
Critically, the Industrial Tribunal had ruled in 2013 that notwithstanding the fact that Albury was employed under six "so-called individual and successive fixed term contracts" she was "employed under a global contract of employment" and therefore could have been considered "continously employed".
It also found that the way in which she lost her job fell under the definition of redundancy.
The Court of Appeal agreed with the tribunal on this and all but one other major point - the amount to be awarded to Albury.
The tribunal had found that she was owed just over $28,466.98, with interest to be payable at a rate of ten percent per annum, from February 20th 2013 until the payment is made. This would mean that to date almost $2,500 in interest would be payable in addition to the initial award.
The court adjusted the size of the award by deducting a portion given that Albury was in fact given seven months' notice by her employer. This left the total award at $26,094.073, with interest at ten per cent.
St. Andrew's, in its appeal to the court, claimed that the tribunal had erred in law when it determined Albury had been employed continuously for 11 years, had been made redundant as claimed, and added that even if she was, she had received the "requisite notice".

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