Ex-airport company manager wins fight against ‘settlement’

AFTER an almost eight-year-long odyssey through Namibia’s court system, former airport services company manager Belete Worku finally secured a victory where it mattered most – in the Supreme Court – last week.

Worku has been locked in battle with his former employers, Servisair Namibia, ever since the company dismissed him from his job in September 2001 while his three-year contract with the company still had 25 months to run.In a judgement given in the Supreme Court on Tuesday, the country’s highest court ruled in favour of Worku’s claims that he never agreed to settle the labour dispute he had with Servisair Namibia. With the court referring the case between the two parties back to the Labour Court for a hearing, it means Worku and Servisair Namibia will have to face each other in court yet again.After being dismissed, Worku obtained a default judgement to an amount of N$660 000 against Servisair Namibia in the District Labour Court before the company swung into action to defend the case against it.Worku later got a District Labour Court order in which Servisair Namibia was ordered to reinstate him in his position and to compensate him for the earnings he lost as a result of his dismissal. Servisair then paid Worku N$36 000.He calculated that he had to be compensated to an amount of $246 391,78, and so the dispute between him and Servisair Namibia continued.With Worku and the company set to go to court with their dispute in mid-June 2003 – by which time Worku had been reinstated by the company and allegedly unprocedurally dismissed again – lawyers representing the two sides reached a settlement on the matter. The deal, in terms of which the company agreed to pay Worku N$72 000, was a full and final settlement of all matters between Worku and the company.Worku however protested that he never agreed to the settlement, and so the dispute got a second wind, with his former legal team this time also drawn into his firing line and Worku continuing to sue the company in the Labour Court.In the Labour Court at the end of April 2006, Judge Gerhard Maritz ruled against Worku’s claims and found that Worku’s former legal counsel, Albert Strydom, had a proper mandate to settle his client’s case with fellow counsel Raymond Heathcote, who was representing Servisair Namibia at the time.In the Supreme Court judgement delivered last week, Acting Judge of Appeal Fred Chomba did not agree. Neither did Chief Justice Peter Shivute and Acting Judge of Appeal Annel Silungwe, who concurred with Judge Chomba.Referring to evidence that Strydom gave in the trial before Judge Maritz, Judge Chomba remarked that he got a ‘dim view’ of Strydom’s standing as a witness. ‘It shows inconsistency on his part,’ Judge Chomba commented.He recounted that Strydom in one breath claimed to have obtained his client’s authority to conclude a settlement that would have been a full and final settlement of all disputes between Worku and Servisair Namibia, while in another he conceded that the company would not sign the settlement agreement if it did not contain the clause making it a full and final settlement.He also testified that he received instructions from Worku to draw up the settlement agreement. Previously however Strydom had told a Judge, when he announced his withdrawal as Worku’s representative, that when he first discussed the settlement with his client he did not convey to Worku ‘the terms of the settlement to such an extent that he understood it to ( … ) incorporate all claims,’ Judge Chomba noted.With Strydom and Heathcote having indicated to the Labour Court that Worku was, in Judge Chomba’s terms, ‘a fickle person who repeatedly withdrew from his commitments’, Judge Chomba commented that it was ‘astonishing that despite Mr Worku’s fickle character as evidenced by his repetitive failure to honour his commitments, Mr Strydom did not, at a much earlier stage, decide to withdraw his legal services from him’.Had he done so, his relationship with Worku might have ended before the ‘regrettable circumstances’ that the court’s judgement had to dwell on could arise, the Judge commented.Werner Boesak, instructed by Engling Stritter & Partners, represented Worku in the appeal. Esi Schimming-Chase, instructed by Frank Köpplinger, represented Servisair Namibia, which is now known as Equity Aviation.