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Schenker Ordered to Pay KSh5.9M After Court Finds Manager Was Forced Out Amid Humiliation Claims
A four-year employment relationship ended with a resignation, but the court found something more troubling.
The Employment and Labour Relations Court in Mombasa has ruled that Schenker Limited, a major international freight forwarder and logistics provider, effectively forced out manager Larissa Manson Hart.
Justice Ocharo Kebira found Hart was constructively dismissed after months of humiliation, workplace isolation and unresolved grievances.
The court consequently ordered Schenker to pay her KSh5,895,832, excluding interest and legal costs.
The judgement, delivered this week, closes a dispute dating back to 2017.
Hart had worked as Schenker’s Mombasa Branch Manager since February 28, 2013.
Her starting monthly salary was KSh500,000 before rising to KSh509,000.
For several years, she said, the relationship remained cordial and professionally productive.
That changed dramatically in 2016, when her relationship with Managing Director Darren Brown deteriorated.
Hart accused Brown of repeatedly humiliating and belittling her before colleagues.
She specifically cited incidents during management conference calls on March 8 and September 14.
She said Brown shouted at her publicly, leaving her embarrassed before colleagues and subordinates.
Those incidents became the first pieces in what the judge later described as cumulative workplace mistreatment.
A disputed restructuring
The dispute deepened after Schenker altered the Mombasa branch’s reporting structure.
Hart remained Branch Manager, but she was required to report to another manager.
Previously, she had reported directly to the Managing Director.
Schenker defended the restructuring as necessary because SGR disruption had damaged its freight operations.
The company also relied upon contractual language allowing Hart to serve in another capacity.
Justice Kebira rejected that interpretation in the circumstances surrounding Hart’s case.
He found the change effectively altered her seniority without adequate consultation or explanation.
The court said the employer’s commercial difficulties did not excuse poor treatment of an affected employee.
Schenker, the judge concluded, still owed Hart an implied duty of fair dealing.
That finding proved important because constructive dismissal does not require formal termination.
Instead, the law examines whether employer conduct makes continued employment objectively intolerable.
Kenyan courts have previously described the doctrine through both contractual and reasonableness tests.
The Final Warning
The relationship deteriorated further during a dispute involving an Ingredion shipment.
On October 24, 2016, Schenker issued Hart with a final warning letter.
The warning accused her of gross insubordination during the handling of the shipment.
It was her first disciplinary communication after more than three years of service.
Hart strongly contested the allegations and responded with detailed written protests.
Justice Kebira did not decide the underlying Ingredion dispute conclusively.
Instead, he focused heavily on the manner in which Schenker handled discipline.
He found the warning particularly troubling because Hart had apparently received no meaningful hearing beforehand.
The judge described the disciplinary process as lacking “any semblance of a fair hearing”.
That episode consequently became another important part of the cumulative case.
Hart did not simply walk away after receiving the warning.
She repeatedly sought explanations, reconsideration and intervention from senior management.
Her efforts eventually reached nine regional and international Schenker executives.
None intervened, according to the evidence accepted by the court.
The Last Straw
The final confrontation came in February 2017 over an employment confirmation letter.
Hart needed the letter while seeking a visa to accompany her ten-year-old son.
Her son was due to participate in a national swimming competition in South Africa.
Schenker declined to provide the requested confirmation.
The company argued that Hart had no contractual entitlement to such assistance.
The judge accepted that the refusal alone would probably not justify constructive dismissal.
But employment disputes rarely turn on one isolated incident.
Instead, the court viewed the refusal against months of unresolved complaints.
It became the “last straw” in an increasingly damaged employment relationship.
Hart resigned on February 28, 2017, expressly describing her departure as constructive dismissal.
Her resignation letter cited the deteriorating relationship, restructuring dispute and breakdown of trust.
The judge found that wording particularly significant because it came immediately when she left.
It was therefore not a litigation theory cooked years after her departure.
Rather, Hart had identified constructive dismissal at the precise moment she resigned.
Schenker’s Evidence Problem
Schenker’s defence suffered another major setback during the trial.
The company had filed witness statements from five people, including Darren Brown.
Yet none of those witnesses eventually testified before the court.
After four hearing deferments, Schenker closed its case without calling any witness.
Justice Kebira therefore expunged the witness statements from the evidential record.
He similarly rejected documents that Schenker had merely filed without properly producing them through witnesses.
Still, the judge stressed that Schenker’s silence did not automatically prove Hart’s case.
Hart retained the burden of establishing her allegations on a balance of probabilities.
The court found that she met that burden through credible testimony and contemporaneous correspondence.
Brown’s absence was particularly damaging because he stood at the centre of Hart’s allegations.
He was accused of humiliating her, issuing the warning and ignoring subsequent complaints.
He never entered the witness box to explain his conduct or challenge Hart’s account.
The judge consequently found his absence materially strengthened the reliability of Hart’s narrative.
A Costly Defeat
The court declared Hart constructively dismissed on February 28, 2017.
Schenker must pay KSh1.527 million, representing three months’ notice pay.
It must additionally pay KSh4.072 million as compensation for unfair constructive dismissal.
Hart also received KSh296,832 for 17.495 days of unused annual leave.
The judge rejected her claims for salary underpayment, the 2016 bonus and additional damages.
Schenker must also issue Hart with a certificate of service within thirty days.
The awarded sums will attract interest at court rates until full settlement.
The company was further ordered to shoulder the costs of both the claim and counterclaim.
Counterclaim Collapses
Schenker had separately demanded KSh1.527 million from Hart for allegedly leaving without notice.
That counterclaim collapsed on several fronts.
Firstly, Schenker failed to present any evidence to substantiate its allegations.
Second, the claim was introduced more than six years after Hart’s departure.
The court noted that employment claims generally face a three-year limitation period under Section 90.
Indeed, a previous ruling in the same dispute had already struck out Schenker’s counterclaim on limitation grounds.
Finally, the counterclaim depended upon Hart having voluntarily resigned.
The judgement found the opposite.
Hart had been constructively dismissed, meaning the employer’s conduct effectively ended the employment relationship.
The court therefore dismissed Schenker’s counterclaim and awarded Hart its costs.
The broader message from the judgement extends beyond this individual workplace dispute.
Employers may restructure businesses, discipline employees and enforce performance standards.
But those powers cannot be exercised while destroying the trust underlying employment.
Here, the court found that trust ultimately disappeared through accumulated conduct rather than one dramatic confrontation.
And when Hart finally walked away, the law treated that resignation as dismissal.
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