Menzies v Corrigan [2025] NZEmpC 186 - employment advocate and employment lawyer conduct

Catherine Stewart Barrister Costs - Menzies v Corrigan [2025] NZEmpC 186

Mr Menzies was argued out of his limited liability protection in relation to grievance remedies (as opposed to wage arrears or holiday pay), and that's the first time this has ever happened. We were instructed to challenge it to the Employment Court after having represented Mr Menzies before the Employment Relations Authority and said outcome.

Concurrently while Mr Menzies sought documents exchanged between Catherine Stewart Barrister and the liquidator (who had by then been struck off), and the Court ordered that Mr Menzies pay over $33,000 to the Court account to be able to stay the order against him personally (Menzies v Corrigan [2025] NZEmpC 22), Mr Menzies and our team agreed that challenging this had then become a waste of time as it appeared that the Court could not understand his challenge, that is why it was discontinued.

Before Mr Corrigan came to be self-represented, there were multiple references by Catherine Stewart Barrister's team to seek a jail sentence against Mr Menzies, including contained within Mr Corrigan's Statement of Defence (which is not the correct way to seek enforcement, that should be "Form 2" in the Employment Court - after a compliance order application is made to and determined by the Employment Relations Authority, which they did not do). Clearly they did not follow the correct procedure.

Mr Menzies subsequently seeks judicial review as fresh evidence has come in (fresh evidence that was subsequently collected from behind a non-publication order that was not known at the time), that is currently underway, and mainstream media have not been forthcoming about this development.

We would have expected Catherine Stewart Barrister to avoid publicity as to not draw attention to her firm not having achieved any real success for Mr Corrigan and almost certainly losing money because of it given the company liquidation and deregistration etc.

The documents below show a more complete picture of what has transpired and show that the judgment contains many errors.