Eighteen-month bad-back saga ends badly for worker

A former meatworks employee has failed to get money out of his former employer, after an 18-month saga involving a bad back.

Chase Beales took Ovation New Zealand to the Employment Relations Authority, claiming he had been unjustifiably dismissed.

But authority member Michael Loftus found Ovation was entitled to dismiss Beales on medical grounds.

He had also injured his back while trying to impress his bosses.

Beales worked for Ovation in Feilding from September 2013, but ended up taking three weeks off after injuring his back while lifting a carcass.

He failed to give Ovation his medical certificate, and did not file an incident report about how the injury happened.

Beales tried to return to work on light duties, but ended up having to take significant time off, and even go to hospital, due to the pain.

He failed to return to work when his medical certificate expired.

Beales kept having problems with pain, and found it difficult to stick to his return-to-work programme, throughout March 2014.

It came to a head on March 21, 2014, when he attended work but, Ovation claims, failed to perform his tasks.

He then stopped taking part in his return-to-work programme.

Tensions escalated throughout 2014 and the first part of 2015, with Beales laying complaints with ACC and Ovation.

Beales was eventually found able to return to normal full-time work, with some restrictions. But there were no jobs available for him that did not breach those restrictions.

Ovation told Beales he would be paid compensation in the meantime, but he would have to do any jobs that came up if he was capable of doing them.

Beales interpreted that as him being fired. Ovation said he had not been fired, but still failed to turn up for work.

Loftus found Ovation was justified to dismiss Beales on medical grounds, as it had spent 18 months trying to get him back to work and he was unable to perform his job after that. All Beales’ claims were dismissed, with costs reserved.