New ground in employment case law involving personal grievances could be broken by a claim arising from the dismissal of a psychiatrist employed by the University of Otago.
An Employment Relations Authority hearing involving psychiatrist Dr Lisa Turner, who had previously worked part-time in the university's department of psychological medicine, ended its second day in Dunedin yesterday.
Dr Turner, who is represented by barrister Warren Forster, is seeking compensation and claims unjustified dismissal, unjustified disadvantage, and discrimination over the job loss.
The university, represented by lawyer Barry Dorking, denies the claims.
The hearing is before ERA member Christine Hickey.
Mr Forster told the hearing yesterday morning the discrimination claim arose from the fact Dr Turner had been dismissed despite already seeking to resolve matters through an existing mediation process.
Dr Turner earlier said she had genuinely wanted to resolve the matters and had been a co-operative, high-performing staff member during more than nine years in the department.
She had been surprised and humiliated to be dismissed from her part-time post in July 2013.
Ms Hickey said she was not immediately aware of any earlier New Zealand employment case law about a discrimination claim arising from dismissal where there was an existing personal grievance.
Mr Forster said he was also not aware of any such cases.
A key element in the hearing is videotape-related teaching, which Dr Turner had successfully introduced in 2006 and offered to senior medical students after completing her case study assessment work.
She had subsequently wished to somewhat reduce her videotape teaching.
Yesterday afternoon, university human resources director Kevin Seales answered a series of questions from Ms Hickey about the information and key factors he had considered before Dr Turner's dismissal.
''It wasn't a complex or difficult matter that required a huge amount of analysis,'' Mr Seales said.
Dr Turner's departmental head, Prof Paul Glue, had required her to maintain the previous level of videotaped teaching but she had not complied, despite being asked several times and given several periods of grace, Mr Seales said.
Ms Hickey asked Mr Seales if he felt the university might have partly contributed to Dr Turner's view that she was not receiving all the information she had earlier sought from the university.
Ms Hickey noted that in response to a request from Dr Turner for a copy of material from a 2004 course handbook, a document had been provided that also included a note that had been written much later.
Mr Seales said that supplementary note was intended to be helpful, and he understood another copy of the material had also been provided.
The hearing continues today and tomorrow.
