In the last six weeks, three separate claims against an employment advocate were decided by the Employment Court. All three judges found that the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) has jurisdiction over third parties.
However, an application to the Court of Appeal for Judicial Review of whether Parliament intended the ERA to have jurisdiction over third parties was made in August 2020.
There was only one case that came close to a legal precedent available to the parties making claims against CultureSafe NZ Ltd - Musa v Whanganui DHB (2010), where then Chief Judge Colgan found that a mediated settlement agreement did bind a certain Board member but declined to make an order against the Board and the Board member. Musa was heavily relied upon by the applicants RPW and in separate proceedings, Turuki Healthcare and BOP DHB, and Musa was treated as if it was were an actual precedent.
The judges’ decisions were:
To the extent that it is relevant, New Zealand is the second-worst in the OECD for workplace bullying. WorkSafe NZ has never prosecuted for bullying. Employment advocacy company Culturesafe NZ Ltd which has a large social media presence is probably the nation’s most significant force against workplace bullying in general, despite being a very small company. It has been proceeded against, with three taxpayer-funded parties putting up a war chest to finance those proceedings, as per the above table. Coincidence? We suspect not!
This concludes our update on RPW. The Turuki decision was released last week, and it appears that Turuki, like RPW, has been used to fund a legal experiment which we will describe in our next article. And of course Bay of Plenty DHB v Shaw is still a train wreck in slow motion.
https://www.leightonassociates.co.nz/.../rpw-v-h-part-2 of 3 - A novel interpretation of a common accounting practice around mediated settlement agreements.
https://www.leightonassociates.co.nz/.../rpw-v-h-part-1 of 3 - An obscure and structurally appeal-proof 2010 judgement Musa v Whanganui DHB has been used in desperation to uphold a penalty against an employment advocate, and now both the ERA and Employment Court will be Judicially Reviewed, along with two other actions against the same advocate and two other parties.