'Humiliated' lawyer gets $38,000 payout

Annabel Young

Federated Farmers will pay its former part-time lawyer $38,000 for what he says is "shame, hurt and humiliation" from being made redundant.

The settlement was reached this week during an adjournment of the unjustified dismissal case Wellington lawyer Mike Smith took to the Employment Relations Authority.

He said yesterday that the federation had also agreed to wipe a debt put at $35,000 and pay $12,000 towards his legal costs.

Smith - who was with the federation 18 years before being made redundant last July - said he was told his position had been disestablished but that the federation was to employ a more junior legal adviser.

Smith alleged bias against him by new federation chief executive and former National MP Annabel Young, who started in January last year.

He would not spell out the grounds for his bias allegation.

Young said yesterday that Smith had alleged she arrived at the federation with the intention of getting rid of him.

However, she pointed out that reorganisation had started before she arrived. She had simply formed the view that the federation would be better served by a full-time junior lawyer.

Smith's claim had been based on humiliation and suffering over being made redundant, Young said.

"We accepted early on that his claims were reasonable, considering that he had worked for the federation for 18 years, but that we would be better off with a full-time junior lawyer."

While the payout could be viewed as "a lot of money", the federation had already saved nearly $50,000 in salary through the redundancy.