Court rejects widower's 25-year-old pay claim against TSC

Gavel

The Employment and Labour Relations Court in Kisii has brought to a close a decades-old bid for posthumous pension benefits, extinguishing a claim filed on behalf of a teacher who died in 1997.

The case pitted the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) against Mark Onyonka, who sued as the legal representative of his deceased wife.

Onyonka sought payment of a negotiated remuneration package agreed between the TSC and the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut), which took effect on July 1, 1997.

He argued that although his wife died later that year while in service, she was entitled to the enhanced benefits, which were never paid.

He moved to court in 2024, seeking orders to compel the commission to settle the alleged dues.

The TSC challenged the suit through a preliminary objection filed in September 2024, contending that the claim was not only inordinately delayed but had already been conclusively determined by superior courts.

The commission further argued the suit was statute-barred, having been filed far outside the three-year limitation period prescribed for employment disputes under the Employment Act.

In response, Onyonka maintained that his case was not a fresh claim but merely a “prompt” for the TSC to quantify and pay amounts he said had already been sanctioned by the Supreme Court in a judgment delivered in May 2019.

He argued that because 12 years had not elapsed since that decision, the claim was still enforceable.

In March last year, senior principal magistrate Benard Omwansa dismissed the TSC’s objection and allowed the case to proceed, a decision that triggered an appeal by the teachers’ employer.

In a judgment delivered on January 20, Justice Nzioki Makau overturned the magistrate’s ruling.

The judge held that the claim was both res judicata—having already been conclusively determined by a court of competent jurisdiction—and time barred.

Justice Makau observed that any claim arising from the 1997 remuneration agreement ought to have been pursued in the early 2000s.

The court noted that the question of pension and related dues for teachers had been exhaustively addressed in earlier litigation, including cases presided over by former Chief Justice David Maraga, leaving no room for reopening the dispute.

Justice Makau rejected the argument that the suit was intended to trigger payment under the 2019 Supreme Court ruling, holding that execution of such a decree should have been pursued within the framework of the concluded proceedings, not through a fresh lawsuit.

Despite dismissing the claim, the court ordered that each party bear its own costs, citing the sensitive and emotive nature of pension disputes.