Employee’s dismissal unjustified but gets no damages…

An executive employee at one of New Zealand’s largest dairy companies was dismissed after it was revealed he was leaking confidential information. The employee had been sharing confidential pricing information with multiple competitor companies to give them better negotiating positions against their employer. This completely violated the employee’s obligations of loyalty and confidentiality.

Concerns were raised by another employee which caused the company to investigate. They looked at his work emails and later suspended him pending further investigation. While suspended, the company tried to arrange two separate meetings with the employee to discuss the matter, but both times the employee was ill and unable to attend. He did provide a medical certificate for this.

After further investigation, the company summarily dismissed the employee after five weeks of suspension. The employee then raised a personal grievance claiming unjustifiable dismissal.

This case was heard by the Employment Relations Authority which had to decide whether the employee had been unjustifiably dismissed.

The company claimed the employee had breached his employment obligations.

The ERA determined that the employee had not been given enough opportunities to respond to the allegations. The company had a strict process for investigating employees, which required at least two meetings. The authority found no reason why that process should not apply to this employee. Based entirely on the failure of the company to follow procedure, it decided that the employee was unjustifiably dismissed.

However, it also found that the allegations were entirely true and that the company did have good grounds to dismiss the employee. It was only because of their failure to follow their own process that the dismissal was unjustified.

Ultimately, the Authority said the employer should have waited until after it had held two meetings with the employee and his medical certificate had come to an end. It then would have had no issue in dismissing the employee for his actions.

The employee was found to be the “architect of his own misfortune” and was awarded no remedies for his unjustified dismissal. While the employer was required to reimburse the employee for his lost wages, because of the large contribution the employee made to his own dismissal, this was reduced by 100% so the employee walked away with nothing.

This case serves as a reminder for employees to not breach company confidentiality, and for employers to always follow correct procedure.

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