Sieberi & another v Board of Management St Mary Academy (Employment and Labour Relations Appeal E007 of 2023) [2025] KEELRC 2094 (KLR)
The bottom line
#Kenya's Employment Court ruled that employees claiming unfair dismissal must prove it first, and employers need not chase workers who stop showing up.
What this practically means
#Executive summary
#Key legal issues
#Proof of wrongful termination
The appeal fails because the Appellants did not establish a prima facie case of wrongful termination; the Respondent's account of abscondment was preferred on a balance of probabilities, affirming the trial court
The court held that the Appellants bore the initial burden of proving termination. Their claim of verbal termination lacked proof for the co-claimant. The Respondent's fixed-term contracts were deficient, but the court did not rest on their credibility; rather, the Appellants simply failed to discharge the burden of proving termination on a balance of probabilities.
Employer's duty toward absconding employees
The Respondent was not required to trace the Appellants to afford them procedural due process under sections 41 and 42
The Appellants relied on Boniface Francis Mwangi v B.O.M Iyego Secondary School for the duty to contact absconding employees, and the Respondent admitted no attempts were made. The court rejected this line of authority, holding it is no longer good law or precedent that an employer must seek out recalcitrant employees.
Validity of the Respondent's fixed-term contracts
The purported temporary contracts were legally deficient, but this did not determine the appeal
The court found the contracts undated, unsigned and lacking essential terms, violating section 10(7) of the Employment Act. However, it expressly declined to rest its decision on the form of these documents, instead resolving the appeal on the Appellants' failure of proof.
Legal principles established
#- An employer is no longer obliged to seek out employees alleged to have absconded duty in order to afford them due process under sections 41 and 42 of the Employment Act
- An employee alleging wrongful termination bears the initial burden of establishing a prima facie case before the burden shifts to the employer to justify the termination
- Written contracts of employment lacking dates, signatures and essential terms are deficient under section 10(7) of the Employment Act
Court orders
#- 1.Appeal not dismissed in favour of the Appellants - the trial court's dismissal of the claim stands (order phrased ambiguously as 'I am therefore decline to dismiss the appeal')
- 2.Each party to bear their own costs of the appeal
- On appeal from
- Magistrates' Court (trial court)
- Not stated
- Jurisdiction invoked
- First appellate jurisdiction over the magistrate's court decision in an employment dispute (provision not expressly cited in the judgment)
Key timeline
#Practical implications
#Frequently asked questions
#Later judgments citing this (1)
#Judgments in the corpus that rely on this one. Where the Court said how it treated the authority, that is shown.
- Oceanic Marine Surveyors Kenya Limited v Charles Ludenyo Musilwa[2026] KEELRC 2599 (KLR)25 Sept 2026applied
Cite this brief
#Cite this brief
Caselaw, "Sieberi & another v Board of Management St Mary Academy (Employment and Labour Relations Appeal E007 of 2023) [2025] KEELRC 2094 (KLR)", Case Analysis (2025). Not stated in the judgment as provided. Source: https://new.kenyalaw.org/akn/ke/judgment/keelrc/2025/2094/eng@2025-06-25
Suggested citation format for research notes or client memos. Always verify the original judgment before relying on any point.