Mr Anderson's Bad Language

Passion, procedure and theatre in the employment jurisdiction.

Don't you mean Mr Bligh's Bad Language?

The title borrows from Greg Dening's Mr Bligh's Bad Language: Passion, Power and Theatre on the Bounty. Dening did not treat Captain Bligh's language as a collection of naughty words detached from everything around it. He examined authority, performance, conflict, memory, and the mythology later built from the conflict.

Employment litigation is obviously not the mutiny on the Bounty. The useful comparison is narrower. Language can become theatre. A colourful insult can become the whole public story, while the procedural mistake, evidential dispute, costs strategy, or legal issue that produced the conflict disappears from view.

The published record

David Fleming and “Fuck Face”

David Fleming told The Post that I had called him “Fuck Face”. I do not dispute that I used the expression.

The expression did not originate in an Employment Court judgment. It entered the public record when Mr Fleming supplied it to The Post for the first mainstream article concerning my "conduct" in the Joyce v Ultimate Siteworks Ltd litigation. That article is now behind a paywall.

This distinction matters. The Court described communications between Mr Fleming and me as unprofessional and abusive, but the published judgment did not reproduce the words “Fuck Face”. The specific expression was supplied to the media by Mr Fleming.

I accept that I used it. I called Mr Fleming “Fuck Face” because he was threatening us with contempt of Court while demanding documents that Mr Joyce and I had repeatedly said did not exist.

The dispute concerned disclosure and, in particular, documents said to relate to job applications by Mr Joyce. Our position was that the documents being demanded did not exist and therefore could not be disclosed. Mr Fleming nevertheless raised contempt proceedings against Mr Joyce, with similar references concerning me.

The published Joyce judgment did not make a finding that either Mr Joyce or I was in contempt of Court. Nor did it reproduce the expression Mr Fleming later gave to the media.

The incident also illustrates the Bligh comparison. Bligh's language did more than express anger. It assigned the recipient a contemptible or humiliating identity. Once Mr Fleming publicly reported the expression, the nickname became a particularly effective piece of theatre: complicated litigation about disclosure and threatened contempt could be reduced to the simple story that an employment advocate had called a barrister “Fuck Face”. Or it could have been reflective of Mrs Brown from Mrs Brown's Boys.

The resulting article concentrated public attention on my reaction, while giving far less attention to the reason for it: threats of contempt made while documents were being demanded that we had repeatedly said did not exist.

Bligh's genuine competence did not excuse his manner, and his manner did not erase his competence. The equivalent proposition here is that my legal criticism did not excuse the insult, while the insult did not answer the legal criticism.

The “human brain” email

“I read a lot… Most lawyers I come up against are lacking the R in IRAC for relevant law, and the A for application of said relevant law. Lawyers that work in the employment jurisdiction in my opinion are incapable of dealing with matters that require the use of the human brain.”

Contained within a "without prejudice" priveleged email.

That is arrogant, sweeping, and insulting. It was also written in the middle of continuing frustration about what I considered to be repeated failures to identify the relevant legal rule and apply it to the facts.

The defensible part of the criticism is the IRAC point. Employment disputes are too often made expensive by representatives who state conclusions, repeat factual narratives, or threaten consequences without identifying the statutory route and procedural foundation for the relief sought.

The indefensible part was turning a criticism of legal analysis into a claim that employment lawyers generally could not use the human brain. That line was entertaining to me when I wrote it.

The source email is published here: Annexure C - the “human brain” email.

The “moron” email

“The Employment Court Regulations are being contravened by a moron. See below the regulations. A Claim must be filed for this.”

This was directed at Daniel Church. I regret the insult. Nevertheless it has become subject to woke media, not only that but also Daniel Church's numerous Linked-In posts talking about it publicly.

The underlying dispute concerned an attempt to treat sanctions or compliance consequences, including references to imprisonment, as matters that could be advanced within an existing de novo challenge by way of a statement of defence or joint memorandum. My position was that the existing challenge did not provide a free-standing procedural vehicle for new compliance relief such as Catherine Stewart Barrister seeking a jail sentence against Mr Menzies. A separate Form 2 statement of claim was required. But nobody was willing to fucking listen to me about that procedural point.

The Registrar's response confirmed the essential procedural point: the Authority's compliance determination stood on its own, a separate statement of claim would be required to seek a compliance order from the Court, and that relief was not within the scope of remedies available in the existing de novo challenge.

The Registrar also said my language was completely inappropriate and directed that correspondence of that kind should not include the Court. Both parts of the response matter. I was right about the required pleading and wrong about how I spoke to the opposing representative. But these are the reasons for having done so at the time.

The source documents are:

• Annexure F - the “moron” email
• The Registrar's procedural response

The “bullshit”, “dumbarses” and “idiots” email

The most concentrated published collection appears in Menzies v Corrigan [2025] NZEmpC 186 at [70]. The Court reproduced portions of an email I sent to a third party on 26 February 2025.

“Thank you for recognising the stupidity of the Authority Member… It is bullshit.”

“EMA and NZBA I have asked if they want to pull finger out their asses and to intervene.”

“The LinkedIn community and most of the names of people that like and comment, they are all dumbarses…”

“Catherine Stewart Lawyers took advantage of Nathan Corrigan, they exploited him, and have now dropkicked him.”

“Please don't subscribe to those idiots.”

There are several distinctions that should not be lost.

The email was sent to a third party. The “pull finger” wording was not a direct email to EMA, the New Zealand Business Association.

“NZBA” referred to the New Zealand Business Association. Some public reporting initially converted that abbreviation into the New Zealand Bar Association. That changed the identity of the organisation and the context of the request for intervention. Those that incorrectly reported that are fucking idiots. Did anyone write to me and call me to ask? No, fuckwitts.

This email was not a judicial submission. It is ludacris that it became before the Court.

Joyce: the judgment did not publish every word

The public record in Joyce v Ultimate Siteworks Ltd is broader but less specific. The judgment records allegations of abusive written communications, late-night calls and texts, and online reviews. It refers to a text sent at 1.21 am on the day the substantive hearing was due to begin.

The judgment does not reproduce every insult or expletive. It would therefore be inaccurate to create a supposed verbatim list from memory, later allegations, or private documents and present it as if every word had been judicially established.

What can safely be said is that I accepted responsibility for most of the communications, apologised, and offered an undertaking to communicate with normal professional courtesy.

What must also be said is that there was no contempt finding against me. The Court addressed the communications as a conduct and costs issue, which was later found to not have increased costs. It also recorded that my conduct did not appear to have increased the costs incurred in the proceeding. Fuckface sought to increase costs because of this, and he was unsuccessful on that.

Read the judgment: Joyce v Ultimate Siteworks Ltd [2024] NZEmpC 204.

What the Employment Court found in Menzies

In Menzies v Corrigan [2025] NZEmpC 186, Judge Beck held that the non-party discovery application against Catherine Stewart Barrister was fatally ill-founded. The Court found that the application was an extraordinary feature of the litigation and that a proper and dispassionate representative would not have acted in that way.

The Court described my conduct as “most improper” and “entirely unacceptable”. It joined me for costs purposes and ordered me personally to pay:

• $1,417.75 for the non-party discovery application;
• $313.93 on my own costs application; and
• $800 on Ms Stewart's costs application.

The total was $2,531.68. I paid it within 24 hours and I hope Ms Stewart enjoyed her trip to Fiji or whatever indulgence she spent the money on. She did not do any actual work to deserve that. Her basis for costs was primarily around 6 days at $500 per day for self-litigant costs for the one-paged Notice of Opposition to the non-party discovery application, and the one-paged unsworn affidavit she wrote in support of said opposition. How the fuck does that take 6 days to write?

I continue to disagree with the Court's analysis and with the public narrative built around the case.

Read the judgment: Menzies v Corrigan [2025] NZEmpC 186.

Bad language can conceal bad procedure

The reason this subject remains worth examining is not to celebrate abuse. It is to resist a lazy form of legal storytelling.

In that story, one representative swears, the Court criticises him, and every underlying issue is thereby answered. It is a very easy story to report. It contains a villain, colourful quotations, and a moral about professionalism.

Real litigation is less tidy. A failed application may still expose a document-pathway problem. An improperly expressed objection may still identify the correct pleading. A successful party may still have spent an irrational amount of money. A lawyer can be courteous and procedurally wrong, and be a fucking idiot. An advocate can be abusive and legally right about a particular point. Probably more right that dumb lawyers that only practise employment law where they got their law degree out of a week-bix packet.

My conclusion

I have called Daniel Church a moron. I have called David Fleming “Fuck Face” after he threatened contempt while demanding documents that Mr Joyce and I had repeatedly said did not exist. I have said employment lawyers were incapable of using the human brain. Most of them are pretty stupid and frustrating to deal with. I have said that the Authority Member was stupid and that the Authority's decision was bullshit. That is also completely correct. I have written “bullshit”, “dumbarses” and “those idiots”. I have told business organisations to pull their fingers out. I never said anything about the New Zealand Bar Association. I have said that Catherine Stewart Barrister took advantage of Nathan Corrigan, exploited him, and dropkicked him as well.

Now fuck off and do some real work.