Documents released at the close of the Talley’s defamation trial show workers at the South Island food processor say they had to fight for years for compensation, and sell furniture to survive, after getting hurt on the job.
Talley’s has sued Television New Zealand, and its Christchurch reporter Thomas Mead, over six stories broadcast in 2021-22 criticising the company’s health and safety record.
The five-week defamation trial finished last week, with Justice Pheroze Jagose reserving his judgment.
A request by the Herald for a series of documents in the case languished for four weeks, but was finally fulfilled last week, the day after hearings concluded. All documents sought were eventually obtained.
The documents included briefs of evidence not heard in open court, including from a pair of former Talley’s workers injured on the job who said the company delayed and fought not to compensate them.
Pania Edmiston said she stopped working for Talley’s in 2023, but had previously worked seasonally at the company’s South Pacific Meats subsidiary at Invercargill for nearly 20 years.
She said she was working bagging legs of meat in October 2019 when she suffered an injury.
“On the day I injured my hand I had bagged approximately 4200 legs. My left arm started hurting and the pain increased as the day went on. By the afternoon the pain became too much,” she said.
She reported the injury to management and was assigned lighter duties until the end of the year. A thumb splint failed to resolve her injury and by March she was told she needed surgery to resolve the issue.
“By this stage my left hand was swollen and I was taking a lot of painkillers. Even though I was supposed to be doing jobs that would not aggravate [the injury].”
She said Talley’s denied her recovery cover after surgery as the operation occurred after her seasonal work had concluded.
She said she was initially unwilling to challenge Talley’s decision: “I was worried that if I made a fuss they would make my working life hell. But I was the sole income earner in our household at the time and I was worried about paying bills,” she said.
In May 2021, nearly two years after the injury and after seeking help from the Meatworkers Union, a review of the decision saw her paid $7000 in back-dated weekly compensation.
The court also heard from Jaye Haitana-Cooper, who worked on Talley’s deep-sea fishing trawlers as a deckhand between 2017 and 2018. He said the crew signed up for seven-week voyages, during which they would work 12-hour shifts on a rotating schedule to ensure continuous operations.
He said in March 2018, he was working in the freezer on a vessel catching 20kg boxes of fish as they slid down a chute.
“While I was doing this, I turned and suddenly felt a ‘pop’ in my back and had a feeling, almost like needles going into my skin, that went all the way down my back and leg. It felt like a ‘pulling’ on muscles. It was extremely painful, but I felt that I had to continue working the shift,” he said.
Haitana-Cooper said he submitted a workplace injury claim and it was unresolved three months later.
“I sold pretty much everything I had just to get us through financially. I sold my truck, laptop, TV and our couches. My partner also had to go back to work at this time, even though we had a new baby. She started working again only two weeks after she gave birth. It was the hardest time of my life, being in pain and worrying about money,” he said.
Haitana-Cooper asked Talley’s to review its decision to decline cover and end entitlements. He said the company declined to change its decision, prompting him to file an appeal to the District Court.
Talley’s settled in August 2021 – more than three years after the injury – and he said after tax and paying off debts accrued during the period, he was left with only $54,000 from a $170,000 payment.
Briefs of evidence for both Haitana-Cooper and Edmiston were read by consent, meaning Talley’s elected not to cross-examine their evidence.
How Talley’s deals with assessing and compensating workplace injuries was a key point at trial.
Two of the TVNZ stories involved complaints alleging the company “cheated” its employees out of medical and financial entitlements.
Talley’s has since 2017, under ACC’s Accredited Employer Programme, effectively contracted out of the state-run worker compensation scheme to manage it in-house through its Injury Management Unit.
TVNZ argued its allegations were broadly true, hinging much of this part of their defence on learning through discovery that the founding IMU head departed their job in contentious circumstances.
Early in the trial, Talley’s head of HR Nathan Howes told the court he began an investigation in mid-2019 into the conduct of IMU head Rebekah Vincent after her staff had approached him concerned that she was directing them to falsify records to be submitted as part of an ACC-mandated audit.
“I found there was evidence of files being edited after the fact and I ultimately determined the allegations were likely true, and that Rebekah had likely forged and falsified records,” Howes said.
Vincent ultimately resigned before the employment investigation could be completed.
In closing submissions, TVNZ were sharply critical of Talley’s and Howes failing to probe Vincent’s conduct further to determine whether the problems identified ran deeper.
“Despite believing that there was mismanagement in the unit serious enough to warrant termination, Howe declined to look further into the effects of Vincent’s tenure on injured workers or the competency of IMU staff to carry out their roles,” TVNZ said.
TVNZ’s closing submission also noted ACC were never made aware of issues with files being sent for audit being doctored.
Throughout the hearing, and particularly in closing, Talley’s denied this episode was evidence of systemic problems and said Howe’s actions in investigating and managing the issue was a sign of robust oversight of the IMU.
Talley’s also provided evidence from the IMU’s auditor who said Talley’s were “equal, if not better, than all professional bodies that offered injury management as a service”.
Talley’s also argued TVNZ could not rely on this episode in its defence as it was not known by them to be true when the stories were broadcast, and by then the issues were historic and resolved.
Matt Nippert is an Auckland-based investigations reporter covering white-collar and transnational crimes and the intersection of politics and business. He has won more than a dozen awards for his journalism – including twice being named Reporter of the Year – and joined the Herald in 2014 after having spent the decade prior reporting from business newspapers and national magazines.