No written contract, cash wages, a text message sacking, then a five figure bill
Gokula Music Limited, which runs a second-hand instrument store in Newmarket, Auckland, took on Angus Jowitt after he answered a radio advertisement inviting "guitar nerds" to apply. He started in May 2023, helping ready the store before it opened to the public.
There was no written employment agreement, no payslips and no wage and time records. Jowitt was paid in cash, usually weekly, at $20 an hour. The store's sole director, Gregory Masson, says the agreed rate was actually $27, with $7 an hour "retained" on account of tax. Jowitt kept his own diary of hours, which Masson accepted was accurate. It recorded 636.5 hours of work between 20 May and 4 November 2023.
The relationship soured within months. Masson says Jowitt refused to hand over key information such as his IRD number and became "volatile" and "aggressive" while pushing for a rise to $37 an hour. Things came to a head over a coffee on 15 November 2023, when Jowitt walked off saying "this isn't working for me anymore", intending to return the next day.
He never did. Masson texted the following morning to say it was not working out, then texted again on 21 November to end the association. Masson maintained that Jowitt had resigned and later regretted it. Jowitt said he had been dismissed.
In Jowitt v Gokula Music Limited [2026] NZERA 297, Authority Member Robert Davies found there had been no clear resignation. Masson accepted as much, telling the investigation meeting he sent the first text to avoid an awkward return, "letting [Mr Jowitt] down gently" in his own words. The Authority held that Gokula summarily dismissed Jowitt on 21 November 2023.
Davies measured the dismissal against the justification test in section 103A of the Employment Relations Act 2000, which asks whether a fair and reasonable employer could have acted as Gokula did. That meant asking whether the employer investigated, raised its concerns, let the worker respond and considered any response. As the Authority put it, "None of those steps occurred here."
Masson's argument that Jowitt was on an informal "trial period" also failed. He conceded it was not a trial period under section 67A of the Act, and Davies found nothing in the verbal arrangement amounting to a trial or probationary term.
The Authority did not reduce Jowitt's remedies for contribution. Davies found the unorthodox arrangements were "not solely his actions" and not close enough to the dismissal to count against him.
Gokula was ordered to pay $9,281.41 in wage arrears, notice and holiday entitlements, $2,970 for one month's lost wages, $2,000 for hurt and humiliation, and $3,500 in penalties for breaching minimum standards under the Act and the Holidays Act 2003. Of the $17,751.41 total, $15,251.41 goes to Jowitt and the balance to the Crown. Costs were reserved.
