High Court dismisses nurse's sick leave lawsuit

2026-01-26 - 19:14

The High Court has dismissed a claim brought by a registered nurse against the South West Regional Health Authority (SWRHA) over salary deductions made following her prolonged illness. In dismissing Nicolia McLean-Kelly’s lawsuit on January 26, Justice Westmin James ruled that the SWRHA acted lawfully and within the terms of the employment contract. “The deductions from the claimant’s salary arose directly from the formal reclassification of her leave as unpaid following exhaustion of her contractual entitlement. “The claimant argues that because she was initially paid in full while hospitalised at the defendant’s institution, the subsequent recovery of salary was unlawful or unfair. I do not accept that contention,” the judge wrote. In deciding the case, Justice James held that the SWRHA neither breached McLean-Kelly’s contract nor improperly exercised its discretion in classifying periods of her illness as leave without pay. McLean-Kelly had sued to recover $63,482.08 deducted from her salary after the SWRHA reclassified portions of her sick leave as unpaid. She also sought damages for breach of contract, loss of gratuity amounting to $13,917, aggravated and exemplary damages, and interest. The nurse, who has been employed at the San Fernando General Hospital since 2018, became critically ill in July 2020 after contracting mycoplasma pneumonia while on duty. She was hospitalised for several weeks, including more than three weeks in the Intensive Care Unit, during which she suffered cardiac arrests and later underwent emergency lung surgery. She also sustained an unrelated injury in July 2021. McLean-Kelly argued that the SWRHA unlawfully reclassified her sick leave as leave without pay and made unauthorised monthly deductions from her salary without notice. She contended that the SWRHA failed to properly exercise its discretion under her contract and should have treated her absence as paid sick leave or injury leave, given the severity of her condition. The SWRHA denied the claim, maintaining that under clause 9(a) of the employment contract, contracted employees are entitled to only 14 working days of paid sick leave per contract year, with any additional leave granted at the employer’s discretion. The SWRHA said McLean-Kelly exhausted that entitlement by late July 2020 and that subsequent payments amounted to overpayments of public funds, which it was legally obliged to recover. Justice James held that the contract clearly limited paid sick leave to 14 days and gave the employer a broad discretion to determine whether any extended sick leave should be paid. He found that this discretion was lawfully exercised in accordance with established HR policies applicable to contract employees, which “normally” provide for extended sick leave without pay. He rejected the claimant’s argument that internal HR guidelines unlawfully overrode her contract, noting that the contract expressly required employees to comply with applicable policies and procedures. The judge also found it implausible that the claimant, as a senior nurse in a highly regulated institution, was unaware of the existence of such policies. In his ruling, Justice James concluded that the SWRHA’s decision was rational, non-arbitrary, and consistent with how other contract employees are treated. He ruled that the SWRHA was entitled to distinguish between contract and permanent staff and that the seriousness of McLean-Kelly’s illness, while justifying extended leave, did not compel the payment of salary beyond her contractual entitlement. On the issue of deductions, he found that the overpayments arose because medical certificates could only be issued at the end of hospitalisation and that HR was therefore unable to reclassify the leave sooner. Once the overpayments were identified, the authority was legally bound under the Exchequer and Audit Act to recover the funds. In dismissing the claim in its entirety, the judge ordered McLean-Kelly to pay the SWRHA’s prescribed costs of $19,479.80, excluding VAT. A 90-day stay of execution was granted. McLean-Kelly was represented by Nigel Transcoso and Shivanna Kitwaroo, while the SWRHA was represented by Michael Rooplal and Marissa Ciara Ramsoondar.