Hockey Manawatu legal battle concludes
A long-running legal battle between a well-regarded hockey administrator and the organisation he helped grow has finally ended.
Hockey Manawatu and its former operations manager Warren Banks have been locked in a legal battle for more than two years, after he was dismissed on what the hockey board said were medical grounds from his operations manager role.
Hockey Manawatu will have to shell out $171,000 to Banks - a former New Zealand hockey player and Sport Manawatu ‘‘Legend of Sport’’ - as a consequence of what one judge called a ‘‘significant and unrelenting’’ series of failures.
Banks was awarded $48,000 for his unjustified dismissal from the manager role, but the Employment Court recently ordered Hockey Manawatu to pay him $123,034 in legal costs.
Banks lost two cases he took to the Employment Relations Authority, but won in the Employment Court. Hockey Manawatu failed in a subsequent appeal, showing he had been unjustifiably dismissed.
Judge Anthony Ford, who detailed the proceedings in the first Employment Court decision, said ‘‘there was not very much that the board of HM got right’’ when dealing with Banks’ dismissal.
They should have put to Banks allegations a different Hockey Manawatu employee made about him, given him time to respond to those allegations and should have had a meeting before deciding to terminate his employment on medical grounds. They did none of those things. Hockey Manawatu’s lawyer Ruth Oakley gave them seven options on how to deal with Banks. All but two were aimed at getting rid of him. She even suggested trawling through their IT system to see if Banks had been involved in inappropriate computer activity.
Banks was found to be entitled to costs, but Hockey Manawatu fought against the amount Banks suggested.
Unaudited financial statements were also given to the court, in which Hockey Manawatu’s accountant Brian Law said there was only $76,215 available to pay the bill.
But Judge Bruce Corkill decided otherwise, nothing the latest financial statements showed Hockey Manawatu had no longterm liabilities, but did have $707,247 in equity and ‘‘employee disputes’’ insurance.
He also decided Banks was entitled to more costs than what would usually be given, as he had tried to settle the case without judicial intervention.
Hockey Manawatu made Banks an offer in 2015 of $29,700 compensation, as well as various costs being waived and Banks’ dismissal being referred to as a resignation. Banks made a counter offer of $20,000 compensation and $20,000 for costs, which was also rejected.
The judge said there was no reasonable justification for Hockey Manawatu to decline that offer, which was well below what Banks was awarded at trial.
In a statement via his lawyer Barbara Buckett, Banks said he had no comment to make other than that he wanted to move forward and be recognised for his contribution to hockey.
A statement from Hockey Manawatu chairman Andrew Bethwaite said they respected the decisions of the courts in what was a ‘‘lengthy and complicated case’’.