Hotel boss still owes pensioner

In November, Jenny Christall will reach an unhappy anniversary: three years since the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) ordered her former employer to pay her nearly $200,000.

She’s never seen a cent of that, because since then, her former boss, Blenheim hotelier Kerry Barton, has steadfastly refused to pay up.

With Barton’s company KLJ Ltd since liquidated, she’s trying to hold him personally liable – but she fears that by the time the slow-moving ERA makes that decision, it will be too late.

As Stuff first reported last September, Christall worked for Barton at Blenheim’s Quality Hotel as a night manager from 2013 to 2017.

From 10pm each night until 6.30am she was the sole staff member, handling bar service, late check-ins, lost keys, wake-up calls and early breakfasts. She even baked for Barton and his wife, Lee.

For a 79-hour working week, she was paid just $310 but did also receive free meals, accommodation and utilities.

In August 2017, she was made redundant without notice when the hotel lost a lucrative contract with Air New Zealand to accommodate flight crews.

In November 2019, the ERA ruled that she had been unfairly dismissed and severely underpaid, and it ordered KLJ Ltd to pay her $148,563 of unpaid wages, $24,116 of lost holiday pay, and $18,000 in compensation.

KLJ did not pay up – and Barton sold the hotel for $3.5m without telling the ERA. An April 2020 affidavit revealed that he was leasing it back and almost all the money was gone.

In October last year, Christall’s case finally went back before the ERA. It disagreed with Barton’s claim that there was nothing to pay her, pointing out that Barton himself owed the company $297,725, he had loaned his son Brad $60,000, and the hotel buyer had retained $197,000 of the sale price while repairs were done.

The ERA also recorded that KLJ’S statement of position at the end of March last year reported positive net assets greater than what it owed Christall. It found KLJ had enough money to pay, and ordered it to cough up before November 23, 2021.

Instead, Kerry Barton did two things. On November 17, he put KLJ into liquidation; then on November 30, he transferred his half-shareholding in a company called Bartman, which trades as Washrite Nelson, leaving Brad Barton its sole shareholder.

It essentially means that Kerry Barton holds no assets in his name, with the family home being owned by his wife, Lee.

Christall wants him to be held personally responsible anyway, using section 142 of the Employment Relations Act, which says people involved with companies can be held personally liable.

Barton’s lawyer, Simon Gaines, has argued that the ERA doesn’t have jurisdiction to issue compliance orders and is threatening to counter-claim, and claim costs, if Christall doesn’t withdraw her claim. Gaines asked the authority to strike out the claim.

With compulsory mediation next month, it’s likely that it won’t be until February next year that the case finally makes it back before the authority.

Even then, Barton is probably only up for about a third of the money, roughly $60,000, because section 142 of the act only applies from April 2016.

Christall fears Barton will bankrupt himself before then.

‘‘He’s getting rid of all his assets and by February [the expected hearing date], he will have nothing,’’ Christall says.

‘‘The law seems very, very wrong. The people who owe money are allowed to carry on as normal and leave the other person suffering. He is just determined he doesn’t want to pay.’’

Stuff first reported Christall’s case last September, when she still hoped she would get some money from Barton. But progress has been glacial, not helped by the ERA’S huge case backlog.

‘‘I really can’t understand the way the law works,’’ Christall says. ‘‘It’s very wrong that I have had to wait this long.

‘‘I do blame the authority – they are very slow.’’

Last year, Barton told Stuff he could not afford to pay and had no intention to pay, saying he disagreed with the ruling and that Covid had deeply damaged his business.

He said: ‘‘I have no money. There’s just no money. I’m not telling a lie here. The place will just go into liquidation within days [if compelled to make payments].’’

He also warned then that he would go bankrupt if personally pursued: ‘‘They might get some satisfaction out of it to say, ‘We made him bankrupt,’ but they won’t get anything out of me [financially].’’

Christall’s advocate, Robert Morgan, says he is determined to take the case to its conclusion.

‘‘It’s all a bit tiresome . . . But what I’ve realised is that if you give up, they’ve won. You’ve got to be as dogmatic as the other side; you’ve got to hang in until you’ve exhausted every avenue.’’

Jenny Christall remains pessimistic about getting any of the money owed to her.

‘‘I’m hoping I get the money, but if I don’t, I want him stopped from running a business any more. Something should happen to him.’’