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Employment Relations Act 2000

Personal grievances, disputes, and enforcement - Remedies in relation to personal grievances

123A: Remedies where controlling third party caused or contributed to personal grievance

You could also call this:

“A controlling third party can be made to pay or do something if they helped cause a worker's problem at work.”

If you have a personal grievance at work, and the Employment Relations Authority or court finds that a controlling third party caused or contributed to your grievance, they can order that third party to help fix the problem.

The Authority or court can tell the controlling third party to pay you money or take other actions to make things right. They will think about how much the third party’s actions caused your grievance.

When deciding what the employer and the controlling third party should do to fix things, the Authority or court will look at how much each of them contributed to the problem. They will split the responsibility fairly between them.

If the controlling third party doesn’t have enough money to pay you all at once, the Authority or court might let them pay you in smaller amounts over time.

The Authority or court will only do these things if they think it’s fair and right to do so.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=LMS363793.

Topics:
Work and jobs > Worker rights
Rights and equality > Anti-discrimination
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123: Remedies, or

“The ways a worker can get help if they have been treated unfairly at work”

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124: Remedy reduced if contributing behaviour by employee, or

“If you did something wrong at work, you might get less help fixing the problem.”

Part 9 Personal grievances, disputes, and enforcement
Remedies in relation to personal grievances

123ARemedies where controlling third party caused or contributed to personal grievance

  1. This section applies if the Authority or the court—

  2. determines that an employee has a personal grievance; and
    1. has, under section 103B, joined a controlling third party to the proceedings to resolve the personal grievance; and
      1. determines that the actions of the controlling third party caused or contributed to the situation that gave rise to the personal grievance.

        1. The Authority or the court may, if satisfied that it is just to do so, order the controlling third party to provide to the employee either or both of the remedies in section 123(1)(b) and (c).

        2. The Authority or the court must consider the extent to which the actions of the controlling third party caused or contributed to the situation that gave rise to the personal grievance.

        3. The Authority or the court must award any remedies against the employer under section 123 and against the controlling third party under subsection (2) in a way that reflects the extent to which the actions of each contributed to the situation that gave rise to the personal grievance.

        4. The Authority or the court may, if making an order under subsection (2), order payment to the employee by instalments, but only if the financial position of the controlling third party requires it.

        5. Subsection (2) applies subject to subsections (3) to (5).

        Notes
        • Section 123A: inserted, on , by section 8 of the Employment Relations (Triangular Employment) Amendment Act 2019 (LI 2019 No 36).