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Dreamline Ordered to Pay Assaulted Ex-Booking Clerk KSh475,746 After Court Finds Bus Firm Denied She Ever Worked There
Dreamline Express Bus Ltd has been ordered to compensate a former booking clerk after a court found the bus company unlawfully denied she was ever its employee, ignored her claims of workplace assault and later threw her out without due process.
In a sweeping judgment that dismantled the company’s defence, the Employment and Labour Relations Court ruled that Nelly Angula Alumasi worked for Dreamline’s Mtwapa branch between September 2019 and June 21, 2022, before being unfairly dismissed over unproven theft allegations.
The court awarded her KSh475,746, plus interest, costs and a certificate of service.
The decision, delivered on July 30, 2026 by Justice Ocharo Kebira, overturned an earlier judgment of the Mombasa Chief Magistrate’s Court, which had dismissed Alumasi’s entire claim after concluding she failed to prove she was Dreamline’s employee.
Justice Kebira found the lower court ignored crucial evidence, overlooked admissions made by Dreamline itself and failed to apply the Employment Act correctly.
“The omission… constitutes… a material misdirection warranting interference on appeal,” the judge observed while faulting the trial court for failing to consider the employer’s statutory duty to keep employment records.
Paper Trail
For nearly four years, Dreamline maintained that Alumasi was a complete stranger to the company.
Its payroll carried no trace of her. Also, its NSSF records omitted her name.
Its lawyers even argued no employment relationship had ever existed.
Alumasi painted a starkly different picture.
She testified that she was hired as a Booking Clerk earning KSh18,000 a month, before assuming additional parcel-handling duties without extra pay.
She said she worked erratic shifts without overtime, was assaulted at work by a colleague and eventually dismissed without notice or a disciplinary hearing.
The appeal ultimately turned on a single question.
Was she Dreamline’s employee?
Ironically, the answer came from Dreamline’s own lawyers.
Justice Kebira devoted considerable attention to a letter dated August 11, 2022, written by the company’s advocates to the County Labour Office after Alumasi lodged her complaint.
Rather than denying she worked there, the advocates informed labour officials that she had been placed on suspension pending investigations and would later receive a show-cause letter under the Employment Act.
For the court, that admission was devastating.
“One does not ‘suspend’… a stranger,” Justice Kebira observed, noting suspension is a disciplinary measure reserved for employees.
The contradiction became even sharper because Dreamline had pleaded earlier that the letter was “completely strange” to the company.
Yet its Human Resource Officer later admitted under oath that the document had indeed been authored by the company’s own advocates.
Missing Witnesses
The Labour Ministry’s evidence strengthened Alumasi’s case further.
A Labour Officer testified that the ministry received her complaint, contacted Dreamline and obtained the company’s written response confirming she had merely been suspended. The officer also stated that Dreamline later failed to attend conciliation meetings.
Dreamline never challenged that testimony through cross-examination, prompting the court to accept it as uncontroverted evidence.
The court also relied heavily on computer-generated booking receipts and parcel despatch records that identified Alumasi as the officer processing customer transactions at Dreamline’s Mtwapa branch.
Although Dreamline branded the documents as forged, the allegation quickly unravelled.
No forensic examination was conducted. Also, no police report existed. No investigation had been completed.
Justice Kebira held that serious allegations of forgery require proof, not mere assertions from the witness stand.
Equally damaging was Dreamline’s failure to produce branch payroll records despite insisting all employees were paid through bank.
The company also declined to call key witnesses, including branch managers Abdul Rahman Hamid, Mr Said and colleague Safari Lewa, whom Alumasi accused of assaulting her.
The judge ruled that those unexplained omissions entitled the court to draw adverse inferences against the employer.
Assault Claims
Having established the employment relationship, the court turned to Alumasi’s treatment inside the workplace.
She testified that on May 29, 2021, Safari Lewa physically assaulted her while they were working at Dreamline’s Mtwapa office.
She reported the incident to police and informed management, but no meaningful action followed.
Dreamline admitted Lewa was its employee but produced no witness capable of rebutting the assault allegations.
Justice Kebira accepted Alumasi’s account and found the company had failed both to protect her and to demonstrate that it maintained the workplace harassment policy required under Kenyan employment law.
Her discrimination claim, however, failed.
Although she alleged she was denied washroom breaks routinely granted to Muslim colleagues attending prayers, the judge found she had not produced sufficient evidence demonstrating unequal treatment.
Costly Verdict
The unfair dismissal claim met a different outcome.
The court determined that Dreamline failed to provide evidence of the alleged theft, did not issue a valid show-cause notice, and did not hold the promised disciplinary hearing as outlined in its advocates’ letter.
Justice Kebira concluded the dismissal violated both the substantive and procedural safeguards contained in the Employment Act.
The court awarded Alumasi KSh108,000 for unfair termination, KSh200,000 for workplace harassment and violence, KSh18,000 in notice pay, KSh18,000 for unpaid salary, KSh90,900 in house allowance and KSh40,846 for accrued leave, bringing the total award to KSh475,746.
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