Claim rejected for bad faith…

The Employment Court has rejected a claim by an employee of the Ministry of Business Innovation & Employment for bad faith in the way the Ministry conducted an investigation into a complaint by the employee against a member of the Employment Relations Authority.

The employee was one of the staff who assisted Authority members with the administration of claims to the Employment Relations Authority and a dispute arose as to what occurred in the lead up to a different Employment Relations Authority hearing between other parties. 

The Chief of the Employment Relations Authority had carried out an investigation, but the employee was not satisfied with that and asked for his employer to carry out its own investigation.  Such an investigation was carried out and the employee was not satisfied with that investigation and raised the allegations of bad faith.

The Employment Court found that there was no bad faith in the way the employer carried out its investigation.  The Investigating Officer was very thorough and very fair in the way she dealt with the issues.  She put all the issues fairly to the parties and gave them opportunities for putting their points of view.  She also gave them opportunities to comment on the draft report before it was finalised and reached very reasonable conclusions on the facts.  She did not accept the versions of events of either the complainant or the responding Employment Relations Authority member, but concluded that she was unable to reach a conclusion as to which version of events was correct.

The case is important because it shows that an employer has to carry out a fair and reasonable investigation of complaints, but is not obliged to decide in every case which version of events was correct.  A decision that the investigator could not reach a conclusion as to which version of events was correct was an appropriate outcome for the employer to reach.  That conclusion was coupled with measures put in place by the employer to try and prevent such a misunderstanding occurring in the future between a member of its staff and a member of the Employment Relations Authority.

Alan Knowsley

Employment Lawyer
Wellington