Plain language law

New Zealand law explained for everyone

Employment Relations Act 2000

Additional provisions relating to enforcement of employment standards - Liability of persons involved in breach, bodies corporate, and principals

142Z: State of mind of directors, employees, or agents attributed to body corporate or other principal

You could also call this:

“A company or boss can be held responsible for what their workers think or do while working for them.”

If someone needs to prove what a company was thinking or intending when it did something related to this law, they can use what the company’s directors, employees, or agents were thinking. This works as long as those people were acting as part of their job or what seemed to be their job.

For cases that aren’t about crimes, if someone needs to prove what a person (not a company) was thinking when they did something related to this law, they can use what that person’s employees or agents were thinking. Again, this only works if those employees or agents were acting as part of their job or what seemed to be their job.

When this law talks about what someone was thinking, it means what they knew, what they meant to do, what they believed, what they wanted to achieve, and why they thought or did those things.

This text is automatically generated. It might be out of date or be missing some parts. Find out more about how we do this.

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM6803103.

Topics:
Work and jobs > Worker rights
Business > Fair trading
Rights and equality > Anti-discrimination
Previous

142Y: When person involved in breach liable for default in payment of wages or other money due to employee, or

“People who helped break work rules might have to pay money owed to workers if the boss can't pay.”

Next

142ZA: Conduct of directors, employees, or agents attributed to body corporate or other principal, or

“A company or boss can be held responsible for what their workers or helpers do when acting for them.”

Part 9A Additional provisions relating to enforcement of employment standards
Liability of persons involved in breach, bodies corporate, and principals

142ZState of mind of directors, employees, or agents attributed to body corporate or other principal

  1. If, in a proceeding under this Act in respect of any conduct engaged in by a body corporate, being conduct in relation to which any provision of this Act applies, it is necessary to establish the state of mind of the body corporate, it is sufficient to show that a director, an employee, or an agent of the body corporate, acting within the scope of his or her actual or apparent authority, had that state of mind.

  2. If, in a proceeding (other than a proceeding for an offence) under this Act in respect of any conduct engaged in by a person other than a body corporate, being conduct in relation to which any provision of this Act applies, it is necessary to establish the state of mind of the person, it is sufficient to show that an employee or agent of the person, acting within the scope of his or her actual or apparent authority, had that state of mind.

  3. In this Act, state of mind, in relation to a person, includes the knowledge, intention, opinion, belief, or purpose of the person and the person's reasons for that intention, opinion, belief, or purpose.

Notes
  • Section 142Z: inserted, on , by section 19 of the Employment Relations Amendment Act 2016 (2016 No 9).