Bluff skipper wins court case
A Bluff fisherman has partially won a case against his former employer Sanford about the ownership of his knowledge of oyster spots in Foveaux Strait.
John Edminstin challenged an Employment Relations Authority determination made in 2016. The dispute was about ‘‘marks’’, which are often locations of oyster beds and are known to be jealously guarded.
An Employment Court decision, released yesterday, says Edminstin’s marks are solely his property and Sanford was not and is not entitled to their retention or use.
However, the court declined to make compliance orders that Edminstin had sought, requiring Sanford to comply with a previous record of settlement.
The court found Sanford had complied with its obligations under the settlement, and Edminstin did not prove a breach of that settlement.
Yesterday, Edminstin said he was pleased the court had found in his favour, and determined the marks were his own.
‘‘It’s a David and Goliath thing isn’t it ... this was kind of, I think, a test case more or less and I’ve managed to win it.’’
‘‘The judge has ruled in my favour that the marks are my intellectual property and that was one of the main reasons for going [to court] ... it’s opened up the door for all skippers,’’ he said.
Edminstin declined to comment on the court’s decision not to make a compliance order, and said he was yet to discuss that part of the decision with his lawyer.
During the hearing, held in December, January and February, Edminstin told the court the marks were his ‘‘life’s work’’ and argued he developed them before he was employed by Sanford.
Skippers thought to be disrespecting another skipper’s marks by intentionally using them without permission became known as mollymawks, in reference to the sea birds that would follow fishing boats looking for scraps, he said.
But skippers did sometimes share their marks with each other by agreement and discussion, and sometimes exceptions were made if a season was particularly bad, he told the court.
Before he worked for Sanford, his marks were collected in notebooks, on pieces of paper, or on charts, which he took on to the boat with him.
Because Sanford’s boat had a computer, then later a GPS navigation system, Edminstin would enter his written marks into the devices on his time off, he said.
He did not enter any new marks into the system during his time as skipper, he told the court.
Edminstin said if he had been told by Sanford that it intended to keep the information on the boat’s technology after he left the company, he never would have used the computer.
But Sanford’s lawyer, Paul Wicks QC, told the court that by entering his marks into electronic equipment owned by Sanford, they became confidential information belonging to Sanford, as per an employment agreement Edminstin signed.
The court’s decision says Chief Judge Graeme Colgan found the marks were and are Edminstin’s property exclusively.