Altercation with young person at Christchurch facility captured on video
A former employee of Oranga Tamariki (OT) has been awarded over $100,000 in remedies after winning his appeal of unjustifiable dismissal at the Employment Court.
The court overturned a previous ruling that youth worker Stephen Baillie has been justifiably dismissed by his employer in September 2021.
The case stems from an incident in April 2021 that involved a young person and Baillie at a youth justice facility in Christchurch where he used to work.
The court heard that the young person, who was a resident at the centre, kicked Baillie during the altercation. Baillie adopted a sideways stance in response to the action, pulling his arm back and clenching his right hand in a motion that seemed to suggest that he would punch the resident.
The young resident filed a complaint against Baillie following the incident, and he was dismissed following an investigation of OT that ruled he violated their Code of Conduct.
Baillie filed a personal grievance to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) immediately after his dismissal in September 2021, but the ERA ruled that he was justifiably dismissed in the case.
Mason Peteru, who was manager of operations at the youth justice facility, presented CCTV footage without audio and said Baillie has inappropriately contacted YP.
According to Peteru, Baillie's actions was "not a reasonable response to being kicked."
Baillie defended that his stance and clenched first were a "natural human response" and "lasted less than a second." He also denied that he was intimidating the resident and argued that he was only concerned that the resident would commit self-harm or harm staff.
The ERA sided with the employer and said its actions "were what a fair and reasonable employer could have done in all the circumstances at the time of the dismissal."
Baillie appealed the decision to the Employment Court, which ruled that he was unjustifiably dismissed, citing its reliance on the CCTV footage, among other reasons.
"The difficulty Oranga Tamariki cannot overcome is that it chose to place heavy, almost exclusive, reliance on the CCTV footage and inferences drawn from it without adequately taking into account their potentially limited value in the absence of accompanying audio, the possibility that the images might support different conclusions, and uncontested evidence that contradicted the impressions from the footage that generated the allegations," the court said.
It also pointed out that Peteru did not interview the young resident involved in the altercation, which meant that he "preferred his interpretation of the CCTV footage" over what was said by Baillie and the shift leader at the time.
The court ordered the reinstatement of Bailey and a settlement of more than $100,000, which includes his lost renumeration and compensation for the harm done against the youth worker.
In a separate case, an employee paid with "large pots of Nutella and a ride-on mower" won over $26,000 after the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) ruled that she was "unjustifiably dismissed" from her job.
