LIMITATION LAW AND CONTRACT CASES: IS THERE A PERPETUAL RIGHT OF ACTION IN CONTRACT OF EMPLOYMENT MATTERS?

Abstract

There has been an ongoing juridical deliberation on the application of limitation laws to court claims relating to contract of employment. The discussions were triggered by a wave of judicial decisions from the National Industrial Court of Nigeria which have posited that limitation laws do not operate to bar actions relating to contract of employment. The judicial impression created by those decisions evidently run counter to the timehonoured policy behind statutes of limitation. Central to that policy is that long dormant claims have more of cruelty than justice in then and that a defendant might have lost the evidence to disprove a stale claim. The policy further postulates that persons with good causes of action should pursue them with reasonable diligence. This article found that the Supreme Court judgments on the basis of which the National Industrial Court of Nigeria founded their decisions exempting contract of employment cases from the grip of limitation laws were considered out of contexts and misapplied. Those decisions of the Supreme Court of Nigeria were focused on the non-application of Public Officers Protection Act or Law to breach of contract cases. They did not make a new rule that limitation laws do not apply to contract cases; rather they re-emphasized and reiterated the existing principle as established in earlier cases that Public Officers Protection Law have no application in actions founded on contract. This article concluded that there is a need for clarification and recommended that the Court of Appeal should intervene when called upon to settle the lingering controversy.