The Southern District Health Board has been ordered to pay $6000 compensation to a Queenstown nurse for the way it investigated her complaint about a colleague. The New Zealand Employment Relations Authority decision, released last week, found Kate Crush suffered an ‘‘unjustified disadvantage’’ during her employment at a specialist unit in the resort as a result of the investigation. The investigation, carried out by two Southern DHB investigators between August 2014 and July 2015, looked into the conduct of a “clinical professional”, known as Mr X, with whom she had “ongoing work relationship problems” since 2005. In his decision, authority member David Appleton said the catalyst for Ms Crush’s complaint, made in August 2014, was Mr X’s approach the previous month to a mutual colleague of the pair, asking for help in making a complaint against Ms Crush. That colleague alleged Mr X said “if other staff backed him up there was a better chance of getting [Ms Crush] dismissed”. He lodged a formal complaint about Ms Crush that month. In her letter of complaint, Ms Crush claimed Mr X’s behaviour towards her amounted to harassment. She said that he generally ignored her unless she spoke to him first. In their preliminary finding, the investigators concluded there was “insufficient evidence that Mr X was responsible, or that the activity amounted to harassment, and so they did not consider it could be elevated to a disciplinary level”. In a letter informing her of the decision, Ms Crush was told “we are unable as an employer to proceed to discipline people if the allegations are based on perception rather than reality in the form of tangible evidence”. Mr Appleton found Ms Crush had been unjustifiably disadvantaged by the way the investigation was carried out, and that it had several flaws: These were the failure to interview Mr X before rejecting Ms Crush’s claims, a failure to link Mr X’s complaint about Ms Crush to her allegations of harassment, and a failure to interview another mutual colleague of the pair. “… these flaws did lead to disadvantage to Ms Crush, as she was reasonably expecting her complaints to be investigated thoroughly, and her concerns acknowledged at the preliminary stage”, he said. “I cannot safely conclude that had the flaws not occurred, a different outcome would not have occurred as far as the preliminary report is concerned.” He ordered the Southern DHB pay Ms Crush $6000 compensation for humiliation, loss of dignity, and injury to her feelings. The authority did not have the jurisdiction to investigate the second and third stages of the DHB’s investigation into Ms Crush’s complaint “as no sufficiently specific personal grievance was raised in respect of them”. A decision on costs was reserved.
