Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A for­mer Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) pro­fes­sor, who was suc­cess­ful­ly sued by two of her past col­leagues for defama­tion, has won her breach of con­tract against the ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tion.

In a judg­ment de­liv­ered this week, Jus­tice Bet­sy-Ann Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son par­tial­ly up­held Va­lerie Stoute’s claim over UTT’s ac­tions in in­ves­ti­gat­ing mis­con­duct al­le­ga­tions lev­elled against her.

While Stoute was seek­ing over $1 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion for the breach and her loss of earn­ings as a re­sult of it, Jus­tice Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son on­ly or­dered $15,000 in nom­i­nal dam­ages based on the cir­cum­stances of her case.

In 2008, Stoute, an En­vi­ron­men­tal Stud­ies Pro­fes­sor, signed a three-year con­tract with UTT.

While the con­tract was not of­fi­cial­ly re­newed, Stoute re­mained em­ployed by UTT and re­ceived a salary in­crease in 2013.

In No­vem­ber 2017, UTT in­formed Stoute of its de­ci­sion to dis­con­tin­ue the En­vi­ron­men­tal Stud­ies pro­gramme.

Eight months lat­er, Stoute was placed on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave with full re­mu­ner­a­tion and ben­e­fits as UTT com­menced a probe in­to her for al­leged breach of aca­d­e­m­ic stan­dards, in­sub­or­di­na­tion and dis­rup­tive be­hav­iour.

Stoute was barred from ac­cess­ing the uni­ver­si­ty’s premis­es dur­ing the probe.

The probe last­ed over a year, and Stoute was blocked from at­tend­ing a grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny at UTT’s O’Meara Cam­pus.

In Jan­u­ary 2019, Stoute was in­formed that UTT would not pur­sue dis­ci­pli­nary charges against her and her ad­min­is­tra­tive leave was lift­ed.

Stoute pro­ceed­ed on ex­tend­ed ac­cu­mu­lat­ed va­ca­tion leave and even­tu­al­ly re­tired in Au­gust 2019.

She re­ceived $143,939.06, which rep­re­sent­ed an ex-gra­tia emol­u­ment, ben­e­fits and salary.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son ruled that UTT could not be fault­ed for not re­new­ing her 2008 con­tract.

How­ev­er, she took is­sue with the dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ce­dure that was not ex­plic­it­ly out­lined in the orig­i­nal con­tract.

Stat­ing that the probe caused se­ri­ous dam­age to the em­ploy­er/em­ploy­ee re­la­tion­ship, Jus­tice Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son said: “The Court makes a find­ing that the con­duct of the De­fen­dant was like­ly to un­der­mine the trust and con­fi­dence re­quired if the em­ploy­ment re­la­tion­ship was to con­tin­ue in the man­ner that the em­ploy­ment con­tract en­vis­aged.”

De­spite the find­ing, Jus­tice Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son found that she was le­git­i­mate­ly re­tired based on UTT’s re­tire­ment pol­i­cy and her pre-re­tire­ment no­tice did not cause a fur­ther breach of her con­tract.

In as­sess­ing the com­pen­sa­tion, the judge not­ed that her salary was not re­duced or with­held while on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave and that $15,000 would cov­er breach of trust and con­fi­dence.

Stoute was sued by the uni­ver­si­ty’s for­mer pres­i­dent Pro­fes­sor Sarim Al-Zubaidy and Pro­fes­sor Wasi Khan over defam­a­to­ry state­ments she al­leged­ly made about them in of­fi­cial com­plaints to se­nior UTT of­fi­cials.

In the cor­re­spon­dence, Stoute ques­tioned Al-Zubaidy’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions and ac­cused him of em­bell­ish­ing his re­sume.

She al­so al­leged that he mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ed funds and en­gaged in pla­gia­rism.

In terms of Khan, Stoute ques­tioned his pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tions, in­tegri­ty, and com­pe­tence as a lec­tur­er.

In 2024, Al-Zubaidy, who re­signed from UTT in 2020 be­fore tak­ing up an ap­point­ment as Ex­ec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the Ba­hamas, won his case and was award­ed $450,000 in com­pen­sa­tion.

Khan’s case against Stoute was up­held in March, this year, and she was or­dered to pay him $200,000 in com­pen­sa­tion.

Stoute has chal­lenged both rul­ings with her ap­peals still pend­ing be­fore the Court of Ap­peal.

Stoute was rep­re­sent­ed by Richard Jag­gasar, while Raphael Ad­jod­hia rep­re­sent­ed UTT.