Judge slams payout delay

Bowls club hit up for interest after ‘wasting time’

ONE of the Gold Coast’s leading bowls clubs has been ordered to pay its former greenkeeper tens of thousands of dollars after a decade-long dispute slammed by a judge as a “waste of time”.

The Broadbeach Bowls Club will pay Mr Green Pty Ltd, owned by Keith Wilson, $111,284.60, including $45,346.60 interest, after in terminating the work contract in 2007.

The club’s claim they sacked the greenkeeper because he was doing a poor job was slapped down by Brisbane District Court Judge Douglas McGill.

“Most of these allegations were a complete waste of time, particularly my time in having to deal with them in preparing my reasons for judgment,” Judge McGill said in a March judgment.

Judge McGill said the trial could have been wrapped up in “two days”.

“The proceeding has not been conducted with great efficiency, but it seems to me that the total time taken is by no means solely attributable to the plaintiff,” Judge McGill said. Mr Wilson declined to comment.

Broadbeach chairman Barry Gilbert said the “messy” situation started about a decade ago when the club voted for his leadership rather than a takeover by the Kurrawa Surf Life Saving Club.

With the six months pro bono work from his son’s Port Macquarie-based law firm, Gilberts Legal, Mr Gilbert said the trial cost the club $32,000.

“We haven’t been paid for 10 years. We’ve only taken enough money for expenses and different things like housekeepers and things like that. Then for people to sue me, it’s a bit rude.

“We’ve probably saved the club $750,000 over 10 years.”

Mr Gilbert, a retired publican of 25 years, said the club was starting from scratch financially after reopening last week.

He said closures due to the Commonwealth Games and for $4 million State Government-funded renovations in the lead-up to the event hurt the club’s bottom line.

“Financially, when we did the renovations, when we closed down for nine months, we lost $250,000, so we started again.”