Luxury car company fights first ERA case

The first Employment Court decision under the new Employment Relations Act was extraordinary for getting the facts wrong, the employer party says.

In the Court of Appeal at Wellington this week, lawyer Michael Reed, QC, said it was hard to see what more Auckland luxury car dealer Coutts Cars could have done to properly follow redundancy procedures, but the Employment Court found it at fault. The five Court of Appeal judges reserved their decision.

Michael Baguley, who worked in the "beauty department", grooming new Mercedes Benz, was made redundant in September last year.

The timing of his redundancy straddled a change in employment laws, with most of the process taking place under the old Employment Contracts Act, but he was given notice when the Employment Relations Act had taken effect. One of the issues was which law applied.

Mr Baguley was given a month's notice and took a case to the Employment Relations Authority, where Coutts Cars won.

He went to the Employment Court and his case was the first hearing under the ERA. The court awarded him $10,000 for humiliation and $5736 in lieu of three months' notice.

"This was a company that tried desperately to get it right, and this is what happens," Mr Reed said.

For Mr Baguley, Garry Pollak said the company's conduct was atrocious. Mr Baguley was called at short notice to a meeting and received a hostile response when he asked for an adjournment to have a lawyer present.

One of the judges hearing the appeal, Justice Tipping, said he thought the real issue was the company refusing to hand over the criteria for redundancy.

Coutts said it was advised to not give the criteria.

- NZPA