SLAPP-happy in Whanganui
- Kim Leighton
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
In a severely flawed redundancy process, an experienced Practice Nurse parted ways with her employer Living Waters Medical Solutions Ltd after one year of service.
An 11 August 2025 determination of the Employment Relations Authority subsequently awarded $23,000 for hurt and humiliation, and $14,151 (gross) in lost wages to Leanne Sutter.
On the face of it, that is a lesson for employers – if an employee faces losing their job through no fault of their own, the employer should not cut corners, such as arranging to meet the employee in a café to tell them their position is being disestablished without consultation, giving their job to someone else, and asking the outgoing employee to train their replacement!
That’s what happened at Living Waters. Sutter did spend a few days raining her replacement and tried to be professional but, as the determination notes, she felt increasingly uncomfortable and sick and understandably couldn’t face serving out the rest of her notice period. Her employment ended on 23 May 2024.
Either party can challenge the determination to the Employment Court within 28 days, and a contribution to Sutter’s legal costs has yet to be determined.
Mysterious counterclaim
Paragraph 7 of the determination notes:
On 28 April 2025, a week before the investigation meeting, Living Waters lodged a statement of problem naming Ms Sutter as the respondent. Living Waters applied to join its new claim to Ms Sutter’s existing claim. On 2 May 2025, I issued a Minute declining Living Waters’ application to join or consolidate the matters and declining Living Waters’ adjournment application. The parties were advised the investigation meeting would proceed on 6 May 2025 at 9:30 am as scheduled.
Around this time Living Waters parted ways with their lawyer for unknown reasons. Sutter is represented by Whanganui advocate Kerri Thomas.
We are aware that small claims against employees that are otherwise too much trouble for the employer to pursue such as non-return of uniforms, unauthorised use of a company vehicle or an accidental overpayment, suddenly become viable by way of a counterclaim if the employee raises a grievance and the employer has to respond anyway. So we wrote to Living Waters asking what the counterclaim was for.
We received no response.
What we know is that a separate file number 3374163 was allocated to the counter claim which means that Living Waters went to the trouble of making a fresh application. It also appears that Authority Member Natasha Szeto refused to entertain it. So the counterclaim against Sutter must have been for allegedly talking to people about how she’d been treated by Living Waters, which presumably made directors Dr Thadigiri and Ms Wagstaff angry or embarrassed. As one of Dr Thadigiri’s other companies was previously a respondent in an unjustified dismissal claim, we believe the counterclaim against Sutter to be a strategic litigation against public participation, or SLAPP.
Retaliatory proceedings
At last count, 32 out of the 50 American States have anti-SLAPP legislation and in 2021 the UK Solicitors Regulation Authority issued an edict that accepting instructions from a client to bring a SLAPP would be a disciplinary matter. New Zealand has no such legal safeguards – only media.
What is it with healthcare providers and SLAPPs? One charitable trust has been embroiled in one since early 2020. After its employee raised grievances including for unjustified dismissal, Progress to Health counterclaimed for an unknown breach of confidentiality including a claim against her then advocate for aiding and abetting that breach. It remains unresolved. And the former Bay of Plenty District Health Board ran a five year vendetta through the employment jurisdiction that cost the taxpayer more than $600,000 before that proceeding collapsing in early 2024.
So, despite the award, maybe Member Szeto did Living Waters a huge favour.
Tristam Price, Editor
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