The High Court in Northern Ireland has ruled that five General Practitioner Medical Advisers (GPMAs) were contractually entitled to be paid on the consultant salary scale known as Schedule 14, not Schedule 13 as their employer had determined. Mr Justice Humphreys held that the contracts of employment, properly construed, required payment under Schedule 14 for all GPMAs appointed after 15 January 2004, and the defendant's reliance on a custom and practice of using Schedule 13 was not valid.

The plaintiffs were Dr Katherine MacLurg (now deceased and represented by her executor), Dr Gillian Clarke, Dr Heather Livingston, Dr Ciara McLaughlin, and Dr Helen Rogers. They were employed as GPMAs, responsible for overseeing GP practices in their regional areas, handling clinical queries, investigating complaints, and advising on performance issues. Each claimed they had been underpaid for several years because their employer calculated their salaries using an incorrect interpretation of the consultant pay scales.

The court heard that the GPMAs' contracts incorporated the Consultant Terms and Conditions of Service (Northern Ireland) 2004. Schedule 13 applied to consultants first appointed before 15 January 2004, while Schedule 14 applied to those appointed on or after that date. All five plaintiffs were appointed after 15 January 2004, but the defendant applied a complex assimilation process that used Schedule 13 seniority scales to determine their pay. For the first and fifth plaintiffs, they were placed directly on Schedule 13 scales in 2005 without their knowledge. For the second, third, and fourth plaintiffs, their seniority was calculated using Schedule 13, then translated to a corresponding point on Schedule 14.

The plaintiffs argued that this approach contradicted their contracts, which specified that salary would be calculated in accordance with the provisions of Schedules 13 and 14. The defendant contended that a custom and practice had developed within the health service to use Schedule 13 as an initial reference point for GPMAs, given that their seniority definition differed from consultants.

Mr Justice Humphreys rejected the defendant's argument. He found that the contracts' entire agreement clauses prevented reliance on an alleged custom or practice. He also held that any such custom would have to be "notorious" and applied "invariably," but the evidence showed that the plaintiffs were never informed of the salary calculation method, and the treatment of another GPMA, Dr Harper, was inconsistent. The judge stated that the operative date in the contracts remained 15 January 2004 for determining which schedule applied, and since all plaintiffs were appointed after that date, Schedule 14 must apply.

The defendant also raised a limitation defence for the first and fifth plaintiffs, arguing that claims before December 2013 were time-barred. However, the judge found that the key facts about the salary calculation were deliberately concealed from these plaintiffs until a data breach in 2018 led to disclosure of internal documents. He ruled that under Article 71(1)(b) of the Limitation (Northern Ireland) Order 1989, time did not begin to run until the concealment was discovered. The limitation defence therefore failed.

Additionally, the defendant argued that Dr McLaughlin's claim based on an alleged representation by Dr Margaret O'Brien about starting salary should fail because the representation was not sufficiently certain to have contractual force. The judge agreed, finding that Dr O'Brien's comments were only an indication and not an unequivocal commitment.

The court concluded that all five plaintiffs were entitled to be paid according to Schedule 14 throughout their employment as GPMAs. The defendant is liable for breach of contract and must compensate them for underpayments. The parties were invited to agree on the amount of damages and costs. The judgment clarifies that GPMAs appointed after 15 January 2004 must be paid on the Schedule 14 payscale, and employers cannot rely on undisclosed internal policies to depart from contractual terms.