Photo: Misty Michael
by Kory Leslie (Freelance Writer)
BELIZE CITY, Fri. Dec 2, 2022
The Belize Tourism Board (BTB) has been ordered by the Supreme Court to compensate another former employee of the board for wrongful termination, just a couple months after the court handed down a ruling in favor of former Director of Tourism, Karen Bevans, who had herself filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the board and is to receive a massive payout to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. That second employee who filed a lawsuit against the board, Misty Michael, was, like Bevans, part of the team that headed the board during the previous UDP administration. Michael, who served as the Director of Marketing and Industry Relations at the BTB, was, like Bevans, terminated just months after the PUP administration was elected, following the general elections in November 2020. In 2021, Michael received a letter notifying her that her contract, which had been renewed in 2020 under a UDP administration that was facing an impending election, and had extended her period of employment as Marketing Director until 2023, could not be honored. The BTB cited the COVID-19 pandemic’s economic impact on the tourism sector as the main reason for Michael’s termination. However, it is reported that her vacant post was filled the day after her departure from the BTB.
This prompted Michael to seek redress through the Supreme Court. She sued the BTB for over $200,000 – the total amount of remuneration she would have collected if her contract had been honored. Michael contracted Senior Counsel Dean Barrow, who also represented Karen Bevans, to present her case, while Senior Counsel Andrew Marshalleck represented the BTB. Marshalleck argued that the contract between the BTB and Mrs. Michael was invalid and unenforceable, since the terms of that contract had not been approved by the Minister of Tourism. In the end, though, presiding judge, Justice Lisa Shoman ruled in favor of Michael, granting her over $200,000 in compensation along with 6% interest per annum from the date of her termination and the cost of legal fees.
While speaking with local reporters, Senior Counsel Barrow commented, “The excuse given, or the reason given by the BTB at the time was that the BTB had been left so strapped for cash, as a consequence of COVID, that it could no longer afford to pay them, and each of them had contracts that contained a clause saying, if the BTB is unable to pay you, the BTB can then exercise an option to terminate you. So, two things arose. Mrs. Michael sued, and we filed the claim on her behalf, and the B.T.B. said ‘well, first of all, we are not liable because we exercised our right under that clause in the contract. We are saying that we were simply no longer able to pay, and so Mrs. Michael had to go.’ But they also said, as they did in the Karen Bevans case, that the contract, because it contained not just that clause about the B.T.B.‘s being able to terminate if the B.T.B. couldn‘t pay, it also contained a clause saying, but if there is no cause or if there is not termination for that reason of inability to pay and the B.T.B., nevertheless, dismisses the employee, then the B.T.B. must pay that employee up until the end of the contract. So, if there is a year to go, two years to go, the B.T.B. must pay. And that was the essence of our claim, that: number one, the B.T.B. was not broke. The B.T.B. was still functioning. Its finances may have become strained, but it was certainly not in a position where it could legitimately say that it was unable to pay.”
As previously mentioned, this is the second wrongful termination suit that was successfully brought against the B.T.B. since the Briceño administration took office in 2020. Reports suggest that there are multiple impending suits against the government that are being filed for wrongful terminations by the B.T.B.