Marika Beauchamp was fired from her waitressing job after getting pregnant. Photo / Supplied
Marika Beauchamp was fired from her waitressing job after getting pregnant. Photo / Supplied
A business whose owner was ordered to pay $25,000 to a woman fired for getting pregnant has gone into liquidation and the money remains unpaid.
Marika Beauchamp was awarded the compensation by the Human Rights Review Tribunal after it was found her boss at Adzuki Bean Cafe and Restaurant in Wellington unfairly dismissed her in 2016.
However, after that decision the former part-owner of the cafe, Bing Du, has been uncontactable.
The company that owned the cafe has also gone into liquidation in the past few days according to documents on the Companies Office.
Beauchamp's lawyer Greg Robins told Open Justice his firm had hired an investigator to make contact with Du through a number of avenues, all of which had been unsuccessful.
"We have gone to pretty significant lengths to make contact," he said, " We don't know if she's avoiding us or not. Really the obligation is on her to come forward."
Robins said he had served a statutory demand for the company - B&T Co. [2011] Ltd - to attempt to force it to pay his client.
Du has been removed as a director of the company that owns the cafe.
The company that owns the Adzuki Bean Cafe and Restaurant went into liquidation on June 7. Photo / Supplied
"Since trying to enforce the judgment the company has entered into liquidation. That's a pretty clear sign that they are not proposing to make any payments," Robins said.
"We view that as a means to evade their responsibilities."
Beauchamp wants the saga to be over.
"I thought winning this would make me feel happy, but right now it's doing the opposite. It's just causing me more stress," she said.
When the decision awarding Beauchamp the money was released in March, she told Open Justice she believed the stress of the ordeal led to the premature birth of her daughter.
She had just started working at the Adzuki Bean Cafe and Restaurant when she found out she was pregnant with her daughter and immediately told her boss.
Du then told her "I don't usually hire pregnant people".
By September she'd received notice from the cafe that she was being dismissed.
In one sentence of the termination letter the cafe owner congratulated Beauchamp on her pregnancy.
But in the next sentence, Beauchamp was dismissed with two weeks' notice.
Adzuki claims it didn't let Beauchamp go because she was pregnant, but because she wasn't very good at her job.
Beauchamp told Open Justice it doesn't matter if Du thinks the decision awarding her $25,000 was unfair, because it was a binding legal order.
"She's not just making it hard for me, but making it hard for herself. She needs to own up to her responsibilities. It's not just for me, that money is for my kids."
