LAMCO J. V. OPERATING COMPANY, Appellant, v. JAMES ROGERS, Appellee.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT, SIXTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT, MONTSERRADO COUNTY. Argued May 21, 1975. Decided June 26, 1975. 1. 2. Issues of law must be disposed of in a case before issues of fact are considered. Where pleadings and issues are not clearly presented in the record before the Supreme Court, the judgment will be reversed and the case remanded with instructions to replead in a manner that clearly and precisely presents the issues. Appellee was dismissed by his employer for what was deemed to be cause. Appellee claimed he was illegally dismissed and brought his matter to the Ministry of Labor, Youth and Sports, which found in his favor, as it did on appeal to the Ministry’s Board of General Appeals by the employer. Appellant took the matter on appeal to the Sixth Judicial Circuit Court, where the court rendered judgment for the employee. An appeal was taken from the judgment. The Supreme Court examined the record and found it a maze of confusion, so that it could not resolve the issues presented. Therefore, in order to do substantial justice to the parties, the judgment was reversed and the case remanded to be repleaded. Moses K. Y angbe and S. Edward Carlor for appellant. S. Benoni Dunbar, Sr., for appellee. MR. JUSTICE HORACE delivered the opinion of the Court. According to the record, James Rogers, who is the appellee and an employee of Lamco J. V. Operating Company, the appellant, complained to the Ministry of Labor, 314 LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS 315 Youth and Sports against his employer for what he considered his illegal dismissal by his said employer. Mr. Rogers was employed by Lamco J. V. Operating Company on June 3, 1964, and enjoyed an unbroken record of service until March 16, 1974, when he received a letter of termination, the pertinent portion of which is set forth. “Despite repeated verbal warnings Mr. Rogers has consistently shown indifference in his job performance, resulting in a deterioration of his job. It has become increasingly difficult to work with him ; therefore we are asking that he be terminated immediately and paid in lieu of notice. Because of his length of service, we suggest that he be given three months (salary) in lieu of notice.” Mr. Rogers was offered three months’ salary but feeling that he had been illegally dismissed, refused the offer and made his complaint to the Ministry of Labor, Youth and Sports, as before mentioned. On April 24, 1974, Mr. C. T. Sonpon, Chief of Mines and Factories of the Ministry of Labor, Youth and Sports, conducted what we consider from perusal of the records, a rather cursory investigation, because so many important phases of the matter were never touched upon. He gave his ruling that Rogers be reinstated by Lamco with back pay. To this ruling Lamco J. V. Operating Company took exception and appealed to the Board of General Appeals of the Ministry of Labor, Youth and Sports. The appeal was heard by the Board and a ruling given modifying the ruling of Mr. Sonpon, the original hearing officer. The Board’s findings were that Rogers had been illegally dismissed, and that he be reinstated or paid the aggregate of two years’ salary in lieu of reinstatement in accordance with Section 9 of an Act to Amend the Labor Practices Law with respect to Administration and Enforcement, approved May 26, 1972. Appellant took exceptions to the Board’s findings and 316 LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS appealed to the Civil Law Court for the Sixth Judicial Circuit, Montserrado County. In keeping with the law, appellant filed a petition in the said Civil Law Court on June zo, 1974, stating in substance that the Board of General Appeals’ ruling did not take into consideration the fact that appellee’s employment with the company was contracted for an indefinite period and that under clause 4. of that contract, appellant had a right to terminate appellee’s service by giving him one month’s notice, and that by offering him three-months’ pay in lieu of notice, appellee had complied with the law and cited Section 1508 (3) of the Labor Practices Law. On June 27, 1974, appellee filed an answer which, in the first place, attacked the venue of the petition with regard to the term of court in which the petition was filed. He also defended the position of the Board of General Appeal. There is no record of any reply to that answer. In October, 1974, nearly four months after pleadings had rested, Counsellor S. Benoni Dunbar, who had, by notice of change of counsel, become counsel for appellee, filed a submission in which he firstly, attacked the petitioner for not making prof ert of the contract of employment referred to in the petition, and secondly, that if there existed a contract under which appellee’s services had been terminated for cause, the cause should have been proven at the Ministry of Labor, Youth and Sports. Appellant’s counsel resisted the submission on mainly two grounds, namely ( r) that having answered the petition the issue of notice cannot now be raised in a submission which should have been raised in the answer, and (2) that appellee’s failure to deny that he was unproductive on the job is deemed in law as admitting that he was unproductive. We notice in the record that on October 19, 1974, the matter was called for hearing by Judge Tilman Dunbar, presiding over the September 1974 Term of the Civil Law Court, who after hearing preliminary arguments LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS 317 made the following ruling : “The above case is suspended until Monday to give counsel for appellant a chance to bring to court a copy of the contract he referred to in Count 2 of the petition. If these lawyers fail to bring this contract Monday morning to be placed in the case file, the court will ignore this plea and proceed with the review of the record sent forward to us by the Ministry of Labor, Youth and Sports. Matter suspended.” Peculiarly, we find in the record, dated November 1, 1974, a withdrawal of the answer filed by the Bloom firm and the submission filed by Counsellor S. Benoni Dunbar, Sr., and yet there is another answer, not an amended answer, filed on October 21, 1974, purporting to substitute the withdrawn pleadings, and a reply to said answer dated November 6, 1974. A careful and painstaking search of the record has left us with no means of reconciling this confusing situation. Thus the matter stood when Judge Alfred B. Flomo, presiding over the December 1974 Term of the Civil Court, rendered final judgment in the case on January 14, 1975, declaring the dismissal of appellee unconstitutional and setting aside that portion of the Board of General Appeals’ ruling providing for two-years’ salary payment in lieu of reinstatement and affirming the ruling of the original Hearing Officer, C. T. Sonpon, that appellee be reinstated with back pay. We have been unable to find anything in the record before us to show how the trial judge disposed of the confused situation above referred to before he rendered final judgment. To this final judgment appellant excepted and appealed. Thus, the matter is before us for review. In the briefs and arguments before this bar, the main contention as far as appellant is concerned is that the trial judge failed to pass on the issues of law in the case, especially that of the contractual relationship of the parties, as well as the issue of the withdrawal of pleadings four months after filing and substituting a new pleading in lieu 318 LIBERIAN LAW REPORTS thereof. And for appellee the main contention is that while the law gives appellant the right to dismiss upon giving notice, yet if it decided to state the cause for dismissal, it must prove the cause, and relied on the Labor Practices Law, Section 1508 (6). These are interesting issues and as much as we would like to resolve them we find it impossible to do so in the face of the maze of confusion attending the case as presented to us. In the first place this Court has held in numerous cases that issues of law must be disposed of in any given case before issues of fact are taken up. We know that appeals on labor matters should be heard on the record, be void as far as possible of all technicalities, and expeditiously determined, but where issues of law are raised in the course of an appeal, whether rightly or wrongly, the trial judge must dispose of them before going into the facts and rendering final judgment. The situation as presented to us being so confusing, and in order that substantial justice might be done to all parties, we feel compelled to remand this case. Where pleadings and issues are not clearly presented in the record before an appellate court, the judgment should be reversed and the case remanded with instructions to replead in a manner that will clearly and precisely present the issues. See Cooper v. Cooper Scott, [1954] LRSC 14; 12 LLR 15 ( 1 954). In view of what has been herein stated, it is our conclusion that the judgment in this case be reversed and the case remanded to be heard from its initial stage, that is, from the point of investigation of the complaint of appellee by the Investigating Officer of the Ministry of Labor, Youth and Sports, to its final determination, and the Clerk of this Court is hereby directed to send a mandate to the court below to the effect of this decision. Costs to abide final determination. It is so ordered. Reversed and remanded. –