An employee was dismissed for incapacity. The rule provided: ‘Upon retirement . . due to incapacity arising from ill-health’ Para 21 had also been premised ‘Upon retirement’, viz at, after or within ten years of the normal retirement date. Other rules, however, did not speak of retirement but provided for a member who ‘leaves . . Service . . or . . is dismissed . . Honourably . . and through no fault of his own or if his services are dispensed with owing to a reduction in or alteration of staff’, and who ‘leaves . . service . . of his own free will or is dismissed for fraud or misconduct’. The essential issue was whether ‘Upon retirement’ referred to retiring in its intransitive sense, or retiring in its transitive sense, or both.
Held: (Lawton LJ) The court distinguished the circumstances dealt with in the rules dealing with retirement and those dealt with in the rules which spoke in different terms of leaving service or being dismissed etc. The use of ‘retirement’ in para 21 had an intransitive meaning, and that applied elsewhere as well. ‘ . .his submission amounts to this, that the words ‘upon retirement’ in paragraph 22 have the same meaning as the words ‘leaves the service of the Institution’ as used in para 25. It would again be very odd drafting if ‘upon retirement’ in one paragraph had the same meaning as ‘leaves the service of the Institution’ in another paragraph.
Judges:
Lawton LJ Fox LJ and Kerr LJ
Citations:
Unreported, 8 November 1983
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – AGCO Limited v Massey Ferguson Works Pension Trust Limited, Bradbury, Chater CA 17-Jul-2003
An employee sought payment under his pension scheme on taking redundancy at the employer’s request. The scheme did not make explicit provision for payment in such circumstances.
Held: The court had to begin with the words used. The kernel of . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Employment
Updated: 21 July 2022; Ref: scu.185200