By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune News Editor

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

A RETIRED public school teacher who spent more than four decades in the classroom is taking the government to court, claiming he’s been unfairly denied a pension owed to him for years.

Benjamin F Thomas, now in his 80s, says he served continuously in the Bahamian public education system from 1961 until his retirement in 1997, well beyond the minimum age required for pension eligibility. However, government officials insist he wasn’t entitled to a pension at all.

The case is set to proceed to trial following a Supreme Court ruling that both sides’ arguments need to be fully aired. In a judgment recently handed down, Justice Carla Card-Stubbs declined to strike out either the government’s defence or Mr Thomas’s claim, saying the matter raised factual and legal questions that could not be resolved on paper alone.

At the centre of the dispute are two key issues: whether Mr Thomas was ever formally appointed to a pensionable position within the public service, and whether his citizenship status at the time of his retirement disqualified him from receiving a pension.

Mr Thomas argues that he was a permanent public officer who, by virtue of serving for over 40 years, should have automatically qualified for a pension under Bahamian law. He began teaching in The Bahamas when it was still a British colony and says he was registered as a “belonger” of the Bahamas in 1963.

He maintains that this status entitled him to Bahamian citizenship when the country gained independence in 1973. Even so, Mr Thomas says he applied for citizenship again in the 1990s, and his application was approved just months before he retired.

The government sees it differently. Officials argue that Mr Thomas never held a pensionable post and was, at all times, a contract worker. They say he received a gratuity upon retirement in 1997 — final compensation for his service — and that no further benefits are owed.

In 2022, decades after his last day in the classroom, Mr Thomas received a letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs formally stating that he was not eligible for a pension because he was not a Bahamian citizen at the time of retirement. A follow-up email reiterated that position, prompting him to launch his lawsuit.

In court filings, Mr Thomas has pointed to earlier correspondence from the Ministry of Education suggesting that officials once regarded him as eligible for retirement benefits. In a 1996 letter, the ministry encouraged him to complete pension forms to “ensure the expeditious processing of your retirement benefit.” A separate letter, however, warned that unless he obtained Bahamian citizenship before turning 60, he would only be entitled to a gratuity.

He says that even if citizenship were required, he had obtained it before retiring.

For their part, government lawyers say there is no documentary evidence that Mr Thomas was ever moved to the permanent and pensionable establishment. They argue that employment in the public service — particularly with pensionable status — is not automatic, even for citizens.

In separate interlocutory applications, both sides asked the court to strike out the other’s case. Mr Thomas argued the government’s defence had no merit. The government, in turn, said his claim was “frivolous and vexatious” and should have been filed years ago.

Justice Card-Stubbs rejected both applications. She ruled that the issues at play were too complex and fact-dependent to be resolved without a trial. The judge also dismissed the government’s argument that the claim was out of time, saying the repeated failure to pay the pension amounted to ongoing breaches that restarted the clock.