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An appeal by sacked Pitcairn Island commissioner Leon Salt over damages owed him by his former employers has been dismissed by the Court of Appeal.
Mr Salt had appealed over the amount of damages awarded to him by two previous employment tribunals.
The Employment Relations Authority and the
Employment Court had found Mr Salt had been unfairly dismissed from the position he held from 1995 to 2003, but found his conduct had contributed to his dismissal, and adjusted the damages accordingly.
Mr Salt was awarded $57,970 for reimbursement of salary, which was reduced by 50 per cent for his contributory role to his dismissal.
In considering contributory factors, the courts took into account emails written by Mr Salt, but not discovered by his employer until after his dismissal.
The emails were sent by Mr Salt to recipients in Pitcairn Island in 2003.
In one email, written before he was fired, Mr Salt described Pitcairn Island Governor and former British High Commissioner to New Zealand Richard Fell as a "sad bastard".
Further emails showed Mr Salt was secretly trying to undermine British attempts to prosecute Pitcairn islanders wanted for rape and underage sex offences.
"You will need to be confident that any of the suggestions made last night cannot be traced back to you. Neither of us should be seen to be inciting civil disobedience," Mr Salt wrote to an unidentified recipient.
Although Mr Fell was not aware of the emails, on September 12, 2003, he fired Mr Salt because he concluded his actions "amounted to either disobedience, neglect of duty and/or wilful misconduct in the terms of his employment arrangement".
Mr Salt appealed to the court for leave on the question whether "in determining remedies under s124 of the Employment Relations Act 2000, was the Employment Court permitted to take into account information which the employer did not know about at the date of dismissal".
In dismissing Mr Salt's appeal, Justice Grant Hammond said although Mr Fell was unaware of the series of emails when he dismissed Mr Salt, his "apprehension that Mr Salt was quite unloyal turned out to be entirely well-founded."
Justice Hammond said the Employment Court was correct to reduce the damages, notwithstanding that the reduction was based on information the employer did not have at the time of dismissal.
"This proposition is subject to the qualifications that subsequently acquired evidence relied upon for a deduction must be reasonably connected to the reason(s) given for dismissal and that evidence must be proved to the satisfaction of the court."
The appeal was dismissed.
In the Pitcairn sex trials, seven of the island's 12 adult men faced a total of 55 sex crimes, some dating back 40 years.
Six were found guilty, with four sentenced to jail terms of up to five years.
- NZPA
