The Employment and Labour Relation Court ordered the Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) to pay Sh1.7 million to a former employee who was forced to resign due to the mishandling of her sexual harassment complaint against her supervisor.
This is after Evelyne Cherotich Maiyo, through her lawyer Paul Macharia, moved to court accusing the bank of mishandling the complaints and unlawful termination.
While delivering the judgement, Justice Linet Ndolo shed light on the crucial issue of workplace harassment and stressed the importance of swift and thorough investigations.
The court awarded the woman Sh1.7 million after she won her case of constructive dismissal, a term used when an employee feels compelled to resign due to intolerable working conditions, in this instance, the mishandling of her sexual harassment claims.
Justice Ndolo stated that throughout the case, the woman’s complaints were consistently disregarded.
“Therefore, I have no difficulty in reaching the conclusion that her resignation was not voluntary. What is more even after she changed her mind and sought to recall the resignation, the bank shut that door as well,” the judge ruled.
Furthermore, the court ruled that it thoroughly assessed the actions taken by the bank in response to the claimant’s case and came to an inevitable conclusion that there was a deliberate and well-calculated effort by bank officials to obscure and undermine the claimant’s sexual harassment complaint.
The court heard that Ms Maiyo’s troubles began with a directive from her supervisor on April 23, 2019.
She was instructed to move from the main Teller Line to the Advantage Banking Suite due to the absence of the assigned Teller.
In her testimony, she revealed that she refused to comply with the directive, explaining that she had already worked in that station the previous week.
According to her, the supervisor’s instructions contradicted the rotation practice at the Kitale Branch.
This assertion was corroborated by a witness called by the lender.
The former employee accused the supervisor of unfairly targeting her, attributing this bias to her rejection of his alleged sexual advances.
She documented these advances as instances of sexual harassment in her communications with bank officials, including the Kitale Branch Manager, who identified himself as the Human Resource.
The bank in its defence said she voluntarily resigned from her position and it accepted it thereby declining her decision to rescind the resignation.
The bank denied the sexual harassment claims saying it was only a diversionary tactic to avoid culpability for her act of insubordination.
However the court observed that the Kitale human resource representative, aware of the complaint, failed to investigate and seemingly sided with the supervisor, contributing to the hostile work environment.
The judge dismissed the bank’s counterclaim and also the supervisor’s case where he sought for the woman to be ordered to publish an apology for wrongly accusing him.
Despite the woman’s claims of discrimination, the court found no substantial evidence supporting these specific allegations.
“In her pleadings and submissions, the Claimant subsumed an allegation of discrimination with her complaint of sexual harassment. She however did not adduce any evidence to support the allegations of discrimination. The claims under this head were therefore not proved and are disallowed,” the judge ruled.
The former banker was also awarded a month’s pay in lieu of notice.
The claim for gratuity was however disallowed as it was not supported by any evidence.
In total, the court awarded Ms Maiyo Sh1,729,000, Sh1,596,000 in a year’s salary and Sh1,333,000 in a month’s salary.
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