The appellant was first employed by the respondent on 5^th May, 1978, his designation on his appointment was a supervisor trainee in the engineering section of the respondent.   The appellant did not produce his letter of appointment saying in his evidence in the superior court that he had lost it. His academic qualification at the time of employment was an Advanced Certificate of Education obtained at the Alliance High School. On 1^st  January, 1989, the appellant was promoted to the position of an assistant engineer and in the course of his employment  he had been given a certificate of long service in 1988.

 On 8^th March, 1995, the appellant received a letter dated 27^th February, 1995 from the respondent terminating his employment.   By then the appellant had worked for the respondent for nearly 17 years and his salary and emoluments as at the date of his dismissal was K.shs.10,475.85/- gross and K.shs.9,400/- net.   The appellant then sued his former employer for unlawful and wrongful termination of employment.   The claims he made in his plaint dated the 24^th October, 2000 were that:-

The appellant himself testified about the circumstances which had led to his dismissal.   He told the learned trial Judge (G.B.M. Kariuki, J) that he thought he (appellant) was entitled to a notice period of six months if his services were to be terminated.   He did not receive any such notice.   The appellant then called one Peter Kabuga Ondari (PW2) as a witness. Peter said he was a certified public accountant and according to that witness the total loss which the appellant had suffered as a consequence of the termination of his employment was Kshs.133,680,285/-. Naturally, the witness did not say what he thought the profit margins of the respondent would be. 

The respondent also called one witness Stanley Andika Mukoko who was its personnel manager. Stanley contended that the appellant’s services with the respondent had been lawfully terminated and that the appellant had been paid one month salary in lieu of notice.

The appellant was naturally dissatisfied with the Judge’s order and hence his appeal to the Court. He listed a total of ten grounds of appeal in his memorandum of appeal and since he argued his appeal in person he did not deal with the grounds in any order. He insisted on repeating before us the circumstances which had led to his dismissal.   We pointed out to him the fact that the Judge had found as a fact that he had been wrongfully dismissed and that there was no cross-appeal on that issue.   We asked him to tell us what he thought he was entitled to as a result of his wrongful dismissal and that is when he told us that he thought he was entitled to a notice period of six months and that he would be a very happy man if the Court were to allow his appeal and award to him a total of K.shs.10 million. The respondent was not represented before us during the hearing of the appeal.

We have considered the submissions of the appellant before us, but we do not see the basis on which he could have been awarded K.shs.133,680,285/- as had been claimed on his behalf by his witness or even the K.shs.10 million which he told us would make him a very happy man. No doubt he would be a happy man if the money was awarded to him, but there has to be a lawful basis upon which the award, whether it be Kshs.10 million or any other sum, is to be made. It may be that the appellant had taken a loan of K.shs.150,000/- from his co-operative society but we do not see what that had got to do with his employer; there was no evidence that prior to the taking of the loan, the employer had agreed that during the pendency of the loan the appellant would not be dismissed.   The value of his shares in the co-operative society were all irrelevant as were virtually all the listed items set out in paragraph six of the plaint.   The learned Judge was clearly right in rejecting those claims as they were simply untenable.

The appellant has succeeded to some extent in the appeal and that being so, we award to him one-third of the costs of the appeal. Those shall be the orders of the Court.