Faitala and Vea v Pacific Island Business Development Trust [2026] NZEmpC 53 - disadvantage findings and remedies varied

Mr Faitala and Mrs Vea had already established unjustified redundancy dismissals in the ERA. Their Employment Court challenge targeted other parts of the determination: the rejection of separate disadvantage grievances, the remedies awarded, and the refusal to impose penalties.

What the Authority had decided

The Authority found that both employees had been unjustifiably dismissed during a redundancy process. It did not, however, uphold their separate unjustified disadvantage grievances and it made more limited awards for lost remuneration and compensation. It also declined to impose penalties.

Separate unjustified disadvantage grievances

The Employment Court held that the Authority had made an error of law by treating the disadvantage claims as simply part and parcel of the later dismissal. The Court identified employer actions during the flawed restructuring process which had affected the employees' employment to their disadvantage before the employment ended.

Those actions included good-faith failures such as withholding relevant restructuring information and failing to respond meaningfully to questions and requests for information. The Court therefore recognised the disadvantage grievances while taking a global approach to compensation so that the same harm was not compensated twice.

Lost remuneration significantly increased

The Court heard fresh evidence concerning mitigation and the employees' attempts to obtain further work. It found the Authority had been wrong to confine the lost-remuneration awards as it had.

Mr Faitala was awarded a sum equivalent to six months' lost wages, less the amount already ordered by the Authority and other income earned during that period. Mrs Vea was awarded 12 months' lost wages, less the four-week ex gratia payment and the two months' lost wages already ordered by the Authority.

Compensation reassessed

The Authority's compensation awards were set aside. Applying the Court's banding approach and considering the evidence of emotional harm, cultural identity, shame, humiliation and the wider personal impact, the Court awarded $30,000 to Mr Faitala and $45,000 to Mrs Vea under s 123(1)(c)(i).

Penalties still declined

Although the Court accepted significant failures in the restructuring process, it was not satisfied the good-faith breaches were deliberate, serious and sustained in the sense required for a penalty under s 4A. It therefore declined to impose a penalty.

Why this case matters

The decision is useful on the distinction between an unjustified disadvantage occurring during employment and a later unjustified dismissal. The same overall sequence can contain separately actionable employer conduct, even though compensation must still avoid double recovery.

It is also useful on remedy evidence. A claimant seeking more than the statutory three-month lost-remuneration starting point needs cogent evidence about causation, mitigation and the employment prospects that would probably have existed but for the grievance.

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