You Can't Have It Both Ways
In my previous article's I have brought to the reader's attention that Member Urlich of the ERA stated to Highmark Homes in our hearing in Tauranga "You must improve your practices, you can't have it both ways".
Member Urlich of the ERA failed to write her instruction to Highmark in her published decisions so that the High Court would see she was not 100 percent convinced Highmark Homes had acted in good faith.
Today I expose the Disputes Tribunal Referee Decision flawed by contradiction. That decision is where David Hayes Barrister and vexatious litigants costs award is derived.
Referee Mueller the Disputes Tribunal referee, and the District Court Judge Cameron's Decision to call my employment remuneration agreement of building a spec house through work for profit in lieu of market wages a sham but not to categorize it as derived solely by the employment relationship demonstrates the absurdity of my appeal being rejected, and it can only be bias against me and self litigants that the High Court would not listen to a word I said or read my affidavits. If the High Court didn’t recognise the flaw from the two lower courts then they shouldn’t be in a High Court Judges role let alone being allowed to bankrupt someone and destroy their businesses.
In order for Judge Cameron to have upheld that the Wheatstone Road building project contract was a "sham" then he would have had to admit it is categorised as an employment matter. It's either one or the other, so how does the court allow Highmark Homes to have it both ways?
1. The 'Ex Turpi Causa' Bar (The Dirty Hands Doctrine)
In Paragraph [9], the Court found the contract was a "sham" designed to influence bank lending. Under the doctrine of Ex Turpi Causa, a plaintiff (Highmark) cannot enforce a debt derived from their own admitted deception. The Court erred by penalizing the employee while rewarding the employer who authored the sham - if that is what the Court believed that it was.
2. Breach of Section 6 (The "Real Nature" Test)
Once a Judge declares a written contract a sham, they are legally mandated by Section 6 of the Employment Relations Act 2000 to investigate the "real nature of the relationship." By stopping at the "sham" finding and treating the debt as a private commercial loan, the Court failed its statutory duty to identify the employment "Staff Perk" at the heart of the build even though in the same District Court Judgement, Justice Cameron can see from the dates of the build it was employment related and it was the factual basis of the dispute that he failed to investigate by not reviewing the evidence, and merely upholding the Disputes Tribunal Referee's "Opinion".
3. The Paragraph [4] vs. [9] Paradox
The judgment contains a fatal internal contradiction. In Paragraph [4], the Court accepted Highmark’s claim of "no involvement." Yet, in reality, Highmark’s Director signed the Practical Completion Certificate. A judgment cannot stand when its factual findings (No Involvement) are physically contradicted by the evidence (Signed Completion).
The District Court's finding of a 'sham' in 2021 and which I have fought against ever since, was a jurisdictional trigger; by failing to transfer the matter to the ERA at that moment, the Court acted coram non judice (without jurisdiction), making the resulting bankruptcy a nullity.
In the Context of the Build being related to my employment and because the District Court lacks the legal capacity to hear that specific topic, any judgment delivered in any other court apart from the ERA in this matter should be considered void ab initio (a complete nullity from the outset).
I have raised before and I will raise again, it seemed very odd how Judge Cameron could come to this conclusion without any rigorous review of the file and the affidavits. I can only assume he was looking out for Highmark Homes if he did not do his homework.
Emails backwards and forwards copying in the Directors of Highmark about the bank lending for the project, and Ryan Hunt Director signing the Master Build Agreement and Certificate of Practical Completion and a year of construction while I am on a salary less than market rate for running their office and managing their licensing operation has resulted in me getting slandered and defamed by both the court and Highmark, yet Highmark “If” the court was right that there was a “sham” building agreement and they signed it having knowledge it was a “sham” have walked off Scott free without punishment.
How does that work Judge Cameron?
Ryan Hunt Director of Highmark Homes told the Court that there was "no such thing" as a Staff building remuneration scheme. Even though there is a fully completed and signed off Master Build contract and Practical Completion Certificate signed off by him, and both Ryan and Bob Hunt had been copied in on my correspondence with the bank to obtain the funding for the project. It is completely absurd that they would then tell the court that the whole thing was a sham. It is even more absurd that the Disputes Tribunal would agree with them and the District Court Judge would agree with the Disputes Tribunal without citing the actual evidence.
Bob Hunt told the court the same thing, he completely denied any input or knowledge of the build but the evidence shows him visiting the site in Gisborne with his friend and lawyer Doug Lyon on their motorcycles, organising the site plans with his neice Tanya and writing emails backwards and forwards to me and Tanya.
Simeon Ashton told the court that he had no input into the build yet there is a full folder of workings with his handwriting, obtaining quotes from sub-contractors, completing pricing, liaising with Tanya and myself making changes to the plans, ordering whiteware.
Judge Cameron - Decision riddled with falsehoods
The crazy thing is that the District Court, the High Court and the Court of Appeal remained focused on making sure I was bankrupted as if their lives depended on it, instead of recognizing that the decision of the Disputes Tribunal was outside of their jurisdiction.
There is no correlation between Judge Cameron's decision and the evidence. It is clear he did not review the evidence otherwise he wouldn't have stated he agreed with the referee because Bob Hunt's emails organising the house build were in the evidence. Highmark have gone along with this error of Judge Cameron's now for 9 years.
Paragraph 4 of Judge Cameron's Decision contains a statement that is directly debunked by the evidence of Robert (Bob) Hunt’s active involvement in the build yet the evidence shows emails from Bob Hunt confirming his visit to the site in Gisborne, organizing drawings and getting them sent to Simeon his QS for pricing.
Adopting the Referee's Findings: The Judge did not perform a new investigation into the ANZ bank's records; instead, he ruled that the Referee was entitled to reach that conclusion based on the evidence presented at the original hearing. He found no procedural unfairness in how the Referee weighed the bank-related testimony against the existence of the signed document.
Judge Cameron agreed with the Disputes Tribunal Referee Mueller when she labelled the contract a 'sham', yet failed to explain how a 'sham' contract could result in a signed Practical Completion Certificate and a finished house. If the bank relied on a document Highmark now calls a sham, that isn't just a jurisdictional issue—it's a confession of bank fraud by Highmark Homes themselves.
You can not have it both ways, it's either an employment matter or it's a building contract. The house was completed, and Highmark Homes chose to construct an employment dispute to ruin my finances.
Bob Hunt told me at a meeting he called at the Sebel Trinity Hotel shortly after my stand down which he stated was "without prejudice" that the contents of an envelope he held was going to "hurt my family". He then handed over a list of deleted files and accused me of deleting data from their server. The absurdity of him printing off a list of files that his own IT company had deleted as part of their monthly maintenance contract with him demonstrates that he was infact losing his marbles as his son, QS Simeon Ashton and salesman Alan Hulme had suggested. Yet he sat there and really believed what he was saying.
My lawyer at the time Craig Horsley told me if the meeting was an ambush to get up and walk out which I did. Later on Bob Hunt turned up at my house and put the envelope in my letterbox with an invitation to a "disciplinary meeting".
The lies Highmark Homes told were blatant and easy to see in my evidence and their own evidence, but the High Court allowed me to be bankrupted by a convicted vexatious litigant David Hayes who is a Tax Lawyer and knew nothing about employment law, in fact he was hired solely because he was Bob Hunt's friend and was using his experience in the technicalities of Bankruptcy legislation against a self litigant.
David Hayes track-record included bringing a a private criminal prosecution to High Court in Lepionka which he relentlessly pursued and was labelled by the court a Vexatious litigant, and he was fined heavily and criticised harshly in the judgement. Still the court refused to listen to my testimony and they put up every single barrier just to ensure that they did not have to admit that any of the Courts or judges had made any mistakes.
Judge Brittain told me when I asked if David Hayes had pursued me so that he could find the money to pay his fine because he was losing every case he took on, that it was none of my business. Judge Brittain also failed to ensure that David Hayes and Brett Martelli were not acting together when given the opportunity, and that may have been on purpose if all three - Hayes, Martelli and Brittain were known to each other. Nothing about the Court surprises me anymore. Judge Kathryn Beck refused to recuse herself when she failed to reveal that Richard Upton Employment Lawyer was her colleague, and I found it after she had tricked me into dropping an application to Join Parties stating that "it will make my job easier".
Kathryn Beck had my application in front of her that said I was applying for a hearing de-novo, yet she decided it was about re-opening the constructive dismissal claim that the ERA refused to hear. And the absurdity of that issue is that the Constructive Dismissal and the Unjustified Disadvantage claim were on exactly the same timeline. The whole thing of the ERA refusing to hear my constructive dismissal claim stating it was out of time when they accepted the Unjustified Disadvantage claim is completely bizarre.
The antics of the Judges and Court makes it very difficult for the public to trust anything that they do or say when even a layperson can identify their mistakes and they fight tooth and nail to make sure they have the last say instead of upholding the law.
The Jurisdictional Error
This is the part the District Court missed.
If the Masterbuild Contract signed by both Nicola Watkins and Ryan Hunt Highmark Homes Director was a "sham" (as the Referee found based on their word), then the money lent to Nicola Watkins to complete the building project was a Staff Perk - A Fringe Benefit which is a form of remuneration and that equates to the matter being solely under the Jurisdiction of the ERA.
The Impact of Highmark's actions suddenly standing me down from work, giving me 9 days to sell the property meant that the profit margin disappeared overnight, then they expected me to reimburse them $22,000 when I had just lost $62,000 on the sale and had incurred $10,000 in legal and loan fees, and had also lost my relationship with the ANZ Bank.
Staff Perks fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Employment Relations Authority (Section 161).
The Result: By calling it a sham, Highmark proved the Disputes Tribunal had no legal authority to rule on the debt. The entire order is void.
The Crimes Act Breakdown
When a party provides a false narrative to a judicial officer to gain a financial advantage, the law has a name for that. By presenting the "sham" argument to the Referee while holding a signed completion document, we are looking at:
Perjury (Section 108): Making a false assertion in a judicial proceeding.
Fabricating Evidence (Section 113): Misleading the Tribunal with a manufactured "sham" theory.
Obtaining by Deception (Section 240): Securing a $24,000 judgment through material misrepresentation.
Lies Upon Lies
Further to the first lie, generally when you tell a lie you have to use another lie to cover up that lie. That's a basic principle we teach our children when they are small so they don't get themselves all tangled up in situations that are unnecessary. However it appears that the Directors of Highmark Homes missed that training, Bob (Robert) Hunt being the father and Ryan Hunt being the son, and both my employers it seems they were so over-confident that the Disputes Tribunal had endorsed their lies, and that they blew over $70k pursuing my bankruptcy on around 6 lawyer firms, that they forgot the main lie is written in the very first decision by the Disputes Tribunal Referee Mueller herself.
So here we have a list of not all of the lies but the ones that immediately stand out, and which the High Court and the Court of Appeal of NZ decided were not relevant when they chose to bankrupt me, and allow Highmark Homes to defame me and destroy my family businesses, then throw my appeal against the "abuse of process" label and defamation case out. As I have shown I am not going to let either the Court of Appeal, nor Highmark Homes get away with it.
Highmark Homes have submitted the evidence of them lying themselves, even without the Court reading my affidavits.
Wheatstone Road, The Building Project
As a staff member I entered into a building contract with my employer to build a spec house which was a staff perk - and it formed part of my remuneration with the company. Highmark used this scheme in lieu of paying market wages. Their QS Simeon Ashton regularly used this opportunity and so did Ryan Hunt. This involved Simeon Ashton performing the role of QS and corresponding with Labour Only Contractors including Builders (the men on the tools not the paper builders, that was us - Highmark). Salesman Alan Hulme paid $30k fee for them to build his house without any management input from himself.
The Masterbuild "Sham" Lie
The "No Involvement" Lie
The "Private Loan" Lie
The "Forensic Expert" Lie
The Lie: Highmark presented Kenneth Goebel as a "Forensic Accountant" to justify charging $22,000 in investigation costs. Contradicting this is the Signed Witness Statement of Kenneth Goebel, Para 7 (Where he actually admits he was a "temp assignment") provided to the Employment Relations authority 16 February 2021.
The "Data Deletion" Lie
The Lie: Highmark claimed Nicola "maliciously deleted a huge volume of data from three hard drives" to hide "unscrupulous material." - Robert Hunt's Submission to District Court, Page 20, Para L. This lie is shown up in my exhibits where the IT technician at the time writes to me on facebook messanger expressing his disgust at the Directors Actions. He offers to write a letter of support, then he withdraws that offer because Highmark Homes has warned him if he provides any affidavits he will never work in Tauranga again. My affidavits are full of email correspondence showing that the Data Deletion story was not true, and that the use of that excuse to stand me down was dropped by Danny Jacobson the employment lawyer at the "disciplinary hearing". The Disputes Tribunal Referee believed Highmark Homes even though the Disciplinary Hearing outcome this was not proven and dropped as a reason for dismissal.
The "Forced Leave" Lie
The "Cancelled Contract" Lie
The "Clutching at straws" Still on the data deletion Lie CA685/2024
Ryan Hunt is currently telling the Court of Appeal that I 'sabotaged' the company by deleting data. This is a provable lie. His own lawyer, Danny Jacobson, struck that allegation out during the 2017 disciplinary hearing because it couldn't be proven. By repeating this 'sabotage' story in 2024, Ryan Hunt is misleading the Court of Appeal with a narrative that his own legal team abandoned seven years ago.
Every lie that Highmark Homes told the court they were fully aware it was a lie, and the email evidence in my affidavits proves otherwise, yet the Court kept refusing to read my affidavits and bankrupted me on the technicality of David Haye's lawyers costs being a debt, won by perjury in a lower court which was not even in the right jurisdiction.
My employment matter to this day has not been heard.
Since the High Court, Court of Appeal and Employment Court simply refuse to acknowledge Highmark Homes have won their bankruptcy case based on fraud, there seems to be no other option but to publish this blog so that the real truth of the matter is out there.
It beggars belief that the District Court, High Court and Court of Appeal would not recognise what I have told them all along, that according to the Legislation of NZ employments are at the sole discretion of the Employment Relations Authority.
What is it about this picture that they do not understand?
Disputes Tribunal has NO Jurisdiction over employment matters.
This matter always was and will always be an employment matter and until the day the High Court and Court of Appeal acknowledge they have breached the NZ Legislation which states that all matters relating to employment are the explicit jurisdiction of the Employment Relations Authority, nobody in NZ can take anything they do or say seriously because they have shown no integrity.
The Disputes Tribunal Decision is a nullity. Therefore every subsequent decision after that should be set aside. The employment case and my defamation case against Highmark Homes should go ahead because the High Court made it their absolute mission to bury me in legal jargon instead of just facing the black and white facts.
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