Employment Court of New Zealand · [2026] NZEmpC 193
South Pole's challenge failed. The Authority's awards for wages, annual leave, and $15,000 compensation remained payable.
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South Pole asked the Employment Court to overturn an Employment Relations Authority finding that Mr Hao had been constructively and unjustifiably dismissed. After rehearing the case, the Court rejected the challenge.
That left the Authority's monetary awards in place. The Court also said Mr Hao was entitled to costs on the challenge and on an earlier stay application, although the amount was not fixed in this judgment.
Mr Hao started in October 2022 as a food technology engineer. His role involved research and development, including product development connected with related manufacturing operations. By May 2023, director Mr Wu said he was concerned about output and lack of progress.
Those concerns led to meetings and correspondence. By late November 2023, the main problem was no longer just performance. It was whether Mr Hao was leaving the business, and that question was not cleanly resolved by agreement.
At the 22 November meeting, Mr Wu said Mr Hao could not continue in employment and said he hoped Mr Hao would resign. A Chinese language email later that day then became part of the dispute, including what it recorded about the end date.
Mr Hao soon asked for an English dismissal notice and later said he had never intended to resign. He also kept working after the proposed end date. The Court treated those later events as inconsistent with a clear mutual resignation.
Key points
By mid January 2024, Mr Hao was still attending work but was not being given anything new to do. He said Mr Wu would not talk to him and wanted work reports by email instead.
South Pole then stopped paying him, asked him to leave a work WeChat group for a related company, and had its lawyer require him to attend a meeting while warning that disciplinary procedures might follow. Mr Hao then got a medical certificate and resigned.
Key points
Constructive dismissal can arise in three accepted ways. Two mattered most here: where the employee is effectively faced with resigning or being dismissed, and where the employer seriously breaches its duties so resignation is a reasonably foreseeable consequence.
The Court found South Pole had decided Mr Hao's employment would end. When he did not resign, South Pole took further steps that made resignation foreseeable. The Court also found breaches of duty, including conduct inconsistent with good faith and trust and confidence.
The Court did not create a new remedy package. It left the Authority's awards in place: $4,920 for withheld wages, $8,200 for annual leave, and $15,000 compensation.
Mr Hao was also entitled to costs on the challenge and on the earlier stay application. If the parties could not agree the amount, he could ask the Court to fix it.
Constructive dismissal is when an employee resigns, but the law treats the resignation as a dismissal caused by the employer's conduct. The Court restated three accepted situations: the employer gives a choice between resigning or being dismissed; the employer's deliberate and dominant purpose is to force a resignation; or the employer seriously breaches its duties and resignation is a reasonably foreseeable result. In this case, the Court relied on South Pole's overall conduct, especially the pressure to resign, sidelining, stopped pay, and threatened discipline.
No. The Court was not persuaded that the 22 November 2023 meeting created a genuine mutual agreement that employment would end. Mr Wu may have believed Mr Hao had agreed to leave on 6 December, but the Court found the impetus came from South Pole. The later emails mattered: Mr Hao treated the situation as a dismissal, said he had never intended to resign, and kept working after the proposed end date. That was inconsistent with a clear consensual exit.
It mattered because Mr Hao was still attending work, yet by mid January 2024 he was not being given anything new to do. The Court treated that, together with pressure to resign and refusal to engage properly on work matters, as part of a serious breach of the employment relationship. The judgment says the effect was that he could not be operational in the workplace and was evidently unwelcome there. That helped make his later resignation a reasonably foreseeable outcome.
Not in any decisive way. The judgment records that Mr Wu had concerns about Mr Hao's output and lack of progress, and South Pole's lawyer later referred to those concerns. But the case turned on how South Pole acted after deciding the employment should end. Because there was no proper process leading up to the dismissal, the Court held the constructive dismissal was unjustifiable. So the ruling is not an endorsement or rejection of the underlying performance complaints.
The Court left the Authority's monetary awards in place. South Pole remained liable to pay $4,920 for wages withheld from 15 January to 9 February 2024, $8,200 for annual leave, and $15,000 compensation for humiliation, loss of dignity, and injury to feelings. Mr Hao was also entitled to costs on the Court challenge and on an earlier stay application. The judgment did not set a final dollar amount for costs, so the parties could agree it or return to Court for a costs order.
Employment Court confirms constructive dismissal in South Pole dispute
The Employment Court reached the same result as the Authority: pressure to resign, withholding work, stopping pay and the later disciplinary warning amounted to constructive dismissal.