By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS

Tribune Staff Reporter

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net

A MAN involved in a years-long employment dispute says he has been left financially devastated and mentally drained after waiting nearly a year for a ruling because the judge who heard the case moved on without delivering a judgment.

Dwight Williams, 52, told The Tribune his life has been upended since September 2024, when his Industrial Tribunal case concluded. Ten months later, he remains without a decision despite being told during the final hearing that a ruling would be issued within two months.

Adding to the confusion, Mr Williams recently received a court summons requiring him to appear in late June, only to be informed days later that the notice was sent in error. A formal letter from the Tribunal’s president, Indira Demeritte-Francis, then confirmed that the matter had been handled by Magistrate Carolyn Vogt-Evans, who had been temporarily appointed as a Tribunal vice-president. She has since returned to her original post, without issuing a decision.

“Mrs Vogt-Evans is not a member of the Industrial Tribunal and does not come under my leadership,” Ms Demeritte-Francis wrote in a July 3 letter seen by The Tribune. “I have no control over the discharge of her duty, nor am I responsible for her actions, or rather in this case, her inaction.”

She further noted that she had raised the issue with Chief Justice Ian Winder and had also written to him about another unresolved case involving the same judge.

Mr Williams, however, says the offer of a rehearing is unacceptable given the emotional and financial toll the initial proceedings took on him.

“I’ve been trying to get some type of information from them for months, and now they’re telling me the court case may have to start over again,” he said. “That is just too much.”

The dispute dates back to 2022 when Mr Williams, a former employee of an entertainment company, was accused of sexual harassment by a co-worker. He claims the allegations were false and that he defended himself by calling witnesses — including people named in the complaint — who disputed the claims under oath.

“They tried to throw a sexual harassment case on me, and I adamantly denied it because I know it wasn’t true,” he said. “The people they mentioned in the emails that would have made the complaints, I brought them to court as my witnesses, and they said, ‘No, that don’t go like that.’”

He said the unresolved case has left him unemployed and deeply in debt, with his mental health deteriorating.

“Sometimes, you know, you’re trying to get these bills paid and it has me emotionally and financially impacted in a bad way,” he said.

“I’ve been here for two and a half years now. When you reach a certain age, you don’t get those jobs like that again. The nature of the case was very horrific, and that could even be stopping you from getting another job. Since I won the case, I just need them to actually deal with the case, because now my constitutional right has been breached.”

Chief Justice Ian Winder confirmed yesterday that the decisions in Mr Williams’ case and another are now “with the Tribunal to be delivered to the litigants,” describing the delay as “unfortunate.”