How a redundancy scoring sheet quietly became a medical incapacity process by the back door
A Christchurch fibre contractor let a redundancy restructure become a backdoor medical incapacity process, Employment Relations Authority member William Fussey found on 15 May 2026.
The applicant, a fibre technician hired in January 2023, had bronchial asthma that limited his ability to work in underfloor and ceiling spaces. He says he disclosed it when he joined; Civtec Limited says it does not recall that. Either way, the condition was accommodated for more than a year, with a colleague handling that work.
In April 2024 he twisted his wrist drilling a wall at a customer site. Civtec referred him to physiotherapy and later hand therapy, and he kept working full time on modified duties.
In September 2024 Civtec began a restructure, proposing to cut its Christchurch workforce from 92 roles to 68. The fibre technician applied for two roles in the new structure but was scored 14 out of 27 in the selection process, short of the marks needed, and was given two weeks' notice of redundancy on 21 October 2024.
Fussey found the process procedurally fair but the scoring substantively unjustified. Four selection criteria were wrongly scored, the member found, with up to three of them marking the technician down over his asthma or his temporary wrist injury. On the "physical aspects" criterion he scored zero, because Civtec treated him as unable to work underfloor or in ceiling spaces without first assessing whether a suitable mask could let him do so. The member found the worker "had done everything asked of him in relation to considering mask options" and that Civtec, not the worker, was responsible for failing to progress an occupational health referral.
The wrist injury, Fussey found, should not have counted at all because it was temporary and the worker had been discharged from hand therapy a week before his redundancy was confirmed.
Fussey said the restructure had become "a de facto medical incapacity process". Had the four criteria been assessed fairly, he found, the worker could have scored as high as 23, comfortably above the thresholds of 18 and 21 and enough to be offered both roles.
Fussey also upheld a separate unjustified disadvantage claim, finding Civtec did not adequately support the worker's recovery. While it paid for physiotherapy and hand therapy and sought regular medical updates, it produced no evidence of a plan to keep him off duties his physiotherapist had warned against, breaching its Injury and Illness Management Policy. A hand therapist had raised concern the worker "never had full release from the tasks that are perpetuating the problem".
Civtec was ordered to pay $23,000 in compensation, $20,000 for the dismissal and $3,000 for the disadvantage, with no reduction for contribution.
Fussey also awarded $14,534 gross in lost wages, the equivalent of three months' ordinary pay. He declined to award more, noting the worker had promptly found work as an Uber driver and had chosen to stay in Christchurch for personal reasons rather than pursue roles he identified elsewhere in the country.
