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An Auckland supermarket director who made his former de facto wife redundant has been ordered to pay her more than $9000 for unjustified dismissal and hurt feelings.
Tania Paterson complained to the Employment Relations Authority after being made redundant last December from her role at Remuera New World by her former partner, Adrian Barkla, who was the supermarket's director and a shareholder of the company MGL, which owned it.
Ms Paterson's job had been manually checking invoices on supplied goods, which took 20-30 hours a week.
The authority said the manual checking had been gradually replaced by an electronic system but it was not until last November - up to 18 months after other staff first began using the electronic system - that Mr Barkla told Ms Paterson she was being made redundant. That was about one year after their personal relationship had ended.
The authority said "in an incredible display of bad timing" Mr Barkla had chosen that moment, just after Ms Paterson had threatened personal legal proceedings against him in the Family Court, to make her redundant.
It said although her position was genuinely redundant, Mr Barkla had been driven by her legal proceedings to finally take the steps he did. That meant the dismissal was unjustified.
The authority ordered MGL to pay Ms Paterson $3040 in lost earnings, $2000 in lost benefits, and $4000 as compensation for injury to feelings.
It said the timing in making her redundant just before Christmas had made it unlikely she would manage to get a job quickly.
- NZPA
