For decades, Nigerian employment law followed a rigid and predictable rule in ordinary master-servant employment relationships: where an employer wrongfully terminated employment, damages were generally limited to what the employee would have earned during the notice period.
In practical terms, an employee who had dedicated twenty or thirty years of service to an organisation could still leave with compensation equivalent to only one or three months’ salary if the termination process breached the contract. The law viewed the dispute narrowly — as a technical breach of contract rather than a disruption to a person’s economic future and livelihood.
That legal position may now be undergoing significant change.
In what could become a defining moment in Nigerian employment jurisprudence, the Supreme Court in IDSL v. Evbuomwan & Ors appears to have considerably expanded the traditional approach to damages for unlawful termination of employment.
Delivering the lead reasoning, Emmanuel Akomaye Agim, JSC, held in substance that where an employer acts outside the terms of the employment contract, the employer cannot subsequently hide under that same contract to artificially restrict damages merely to salary in lieu of notice.
