Ignoring a bullying complaint is cheaper until the ERA reads it

A driver loses six grievance claims at the Employment Relations Authority. You would expect his former employer to be relieved. Instead it is preparing to defend the two claims that matter most.

Stuff reports that driver David Brennan can pursue claims that a supervisor bullied him, that the company ignored his complaints, and that he was unjustifiably dismissed, even though the Authority rejected six of his other grievance claims. None of his allegations is proven. But the employer still faces a hearing, legal fees and lost management time, because the claims that survived go to the heart of how it handled him.

That is the lesson for every business owner. The Authority tests process and substance separately. An employee’s weak case on most fronts does not cover for an employer’s weak process on the fronts that count.

Seven minutes and no notes

The pattern is everywhere in 2026 determinations. In August, Authority member Simon Greening found Big B Cartage could not lean on a crude, threatening text a driver sent a colleague to justify a rushed dismissal. The disciplinary meeting lasted seven minutes, nobody took notes, and the key text was never shown to the driver beforehand. The company failed every limb of the statutory test. An initial $13,000 award was cut by 25 percent for the driver’s own conduct, leaving $9,750 payable within 28 days.

The director thought he was dealing with a bully. He may well have been. He still lost.

Protecting complainants is not a licence to skip the investigation

In May 2026, Brandt Tractor learned the same lesson from the other direction. It dismissed sales manager Nicholas Pilcher after four bullying complaints arrived in quick succession, but the Authority found it had spoken only to the complainants and never genuinely investigated. Brandt argued it withheld details to shield complainants from retaliation. The Authority said redaction, summaries or an independent investigator were all available. The bill was four months’ lost pay plus compensation reduced to $19,360.

Then there is timing. In February 2026, the Authority ruled that Jet-X Christchurch must face scrutiny after worker Jaime Allum’s bullying complaint was rejected within a week and a disciplinary process ended in her dismissal weeks later. Whether that was retaliation is still to be heard. The sequence alone kept the case alive.

Speed looks like motive

None of this is new. The Authority’s 2024 annual report, published in 2025, highlighted Bowen v Bank of New Zealand, where a restructure disestablishment was confirmed 45 minutes after the employee raised concerns. He was found unjustifiably dismissed even though four other grievances failed. That is the Brennan pattern almost exactly.

Ignoring a complaint outright costs more. The Authority’s 2022 report described an employer that left a bullied employee to manage the relationship alone. The resulting constructive dismissal finding brought $32,000 compensation, 20 weeks’ pay and a $12,000 penalty. Back in 2023, BE Employment Law summarised the principle behind Hall v KiwiRail bluntly: “Frustration with or suspicion of the complaining employee does not cancel out the obligation to investigate.”

The odds still favour the worker

Employers have been improving, but slowly. An analysis of 2023 figures found employees won 64 percent of unjustified dismissal claims, down from 73 percent in 2022. Many employer losses involved process errors, “sometimes minor but significant enough” to sink them. Meanwhile the Authority recorded a 22 percent jump in problems lodged in 2024, and it is moving faster, leaving less time to tidy up a messy file.

The supply of complaints is not drying up either. A 2024 Massey University survey found 57 percent of employees experienced at least two types of bullying weekly or daily. And in 2025 Rachael Judge, then a Simpson Grierson partner, warned that investigations were becoming “increasingly litigious and difficult to get right”.

Proportionate beats perfect

The fix is not a forensic inquiry into every grumble. In Lowings v University of Canterbury, the Authority accepted a prompt, triaged response with interim arrangements and mediation as fair, without a full formal investigation. What it will not accept is silence, haste or secrecy.

For a small business, that means acknowledging a complaint in writing, deciding and recording what you will do about it, giving the accused person the evidence against them, taking notes in every meeting, and pausing before launching discipline against someone who has just complained. None of that costs much. All of it is cheaper than a hearing.

Brennan’s case now proceeds on the claims that survived, and his employer may yet win. But it has already paid the price of a dispute that a documented response could have closed down early. Every employer reading the determinations this year should take the hint: the Authority reads the file, and an empty file reads badly.

Sources

• Stuff: Driver claims supervisor bullied him and company ignored complaints before axing him (2026-11-09)
• HCA Mag: Big B Cartage loses unjustified dismissal case over workplace bullying claim (2026-09-08)
• HCA Mag: Employer faces ERA scrutiny after dismissing worker who raised bullying complaint (2026-02-28)
• Anderson Law: Nicholas Gordon Pilcher v Brandt Tractor Limited [2026] NZERA 273 (2026-05-04)
• Employment Relations Authority: Annual report 2024 (2025-06-26)
• Employment Relations Authority: Annual report 2022 (2022)
• BE Employment Law: Employee complaints – less fun in the sun (2023-12-08)
• Russell Drake Consulting: What percentage of employers win a personal grievance case? (2024-06-07)
• NZ Herald/Listener: NZ’s levels of workplace bullying are startlingly high. Do we need stronger laws? (2024-10-21)
• BusinessDesk: Employment investigations becoming increasingly difficult to get right (2025-02-20)
• Wynn Williams: To investigate or not to investigate – triaging employee complaints