KEY POINTS:
A woman dismissed as a caregiver for the elderly after arriving an hour late for work has been awarded more than $7000 compensation despite being on a final warning for allegedly breaking a patient's leg two weeks earlier.
Veisinia Pulu claimed she was unjustifiably dismissed from her job as a caregiver at the Cornwall Park Hospital, Auckland, on June 18, 2002.
Pulu was dismissed after turning up to work an hour late on June 11, 2002, her only explanation being that she had slept in.
She had already received a final warning after an incident on May 31, 2002, during which a patient, a frail elderly woman unable to speak, had suffered a broken leg.
An investigation into the incident found Pulu was the last member of staff to attend to the patient.
During the investigation it emerged that Pulu, with other staff members, routinely turned patients on their own, despite it being hospital policy that staff lifting patients must do so in pairs.
All staff were given warnings at various levels, verbal, written, or final written, requiring them to comply with the policy.
After Pulu arrived at work an hour after her start time on June 11, she was called to a disciplinary meeting. She was dismissed several days later.
The Employment Relations Authority found Pulu was unfairly dismissed because her final warning could apply only if she engaged in the same kind of misconduct or non-performance the warning was originally given for - lifting patients by herself, or similar.
The wording of the employment agreement restricted "an employee on a final written warning from being dismissed for an unrelated minor offence which would otherwise justify only a relatively minor reprimand".
"The scheme of the respondent's house rules clearly shows that a single incident of lateness would not even necessarily amount to a breach of the house rules," the authority found.
It ruled Pulu should be awarded 12 weeks' lost wages of $4800, less tax, and $2250 as compensation for humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to her feelings.
- NZPA
