The Jersey Court of Appeal has overturned a Royal Court judgment that found the society liable for the psychiatric injury suffered by Colin MacLeod, pictured, who led the Coop from 2010 until his employment ended in June 2020.
Mr MacLeod joined the society in 1990 aged 20 as a management trainee and worked his way to the top. Last December, the Royal Court found the Coop had breached its duty of care to him, foreseeably causing psychiatric injury and substantial loss of earnings, and awarded the damages sum.
In their judgment, the three appeal judges did not clear the Coop of wrongdoing. They upheld the lower court’s findings in full, including that three former directors – Jennifer Carnegie and Guernsey-based Carol Champion and Paula Williams – had acted in ‘bad faith’ in what was described as a ‘deliberate campaign’ to remove him.
The court heard they had used a secret WhatsApp group, pushed for two audits of his expenses, and that one of them had applied for his job.
But the appeal turned on a narrower question – whether it was reasonably foreseeable that such treatment would cause a psychiatric illness. The judges concluded it was not.
They noted that Mr MacLeod was ‘a strong personality’ and the ‘dominant figure’ at the society, had no known vulnerability, and that nobody – including Mr MacLeod himself – had foreseen his breakdown. While his treatment had been ‘unpleasant, reprehensible’ and distressing, that was not enough in law to make the society liable.
The ruling means the compensation award falls away.
Because the appeal succeeded on that point, the judges said the amount he was owed was now academic. Had it mattered, they would have sent the case back to the Royal Court to decide how much of his loss flowed from the dismissal itself.
Separately, Mr MacLeod had already settled a tribunal claim for unfair dismissal and disability discrimination in 2021, receiving just over £200,000.
He had received £600,000 of the £3.5m. award earlier this year to pay outstanding legal fees, repay loans from his parents and fund his defence of the appeal.
The earlier Royal Court judgment authorising the payment recorded that Mr MacLeod was ‘clear that if the appeal was successful he would have to repay this sum’.
The court acknowledged that repaying the money following a successful appeal would require the sale of his home.
The judges also suggested Jersey’s employment laws be reviewed, and criticised the ‘lack of discipline’ in the Coop’s 150-page written submissions.
