The Shark Is Fighting For Every Penny!
/Nick Tabakoff reports that Greg Norman has lost in court trying to get out of paying a massive sum ($6730.71) in termination/vacation pay to Joanne Dwyer, the office administrator of his shuttered Sydney course design firm. This sounds like a most noble cause the Shark and his legal team took up:
Employees other than Ms Dwyer received five weeks' pay as notice for their termination because of the office closure. Ms Dwyer was not paid even this amount.
Norman's representatives claimed in a statement to the court that "no redundancy payment was offered to Ms Dwyer because she was not entitled to a minimum redundancy payout due to her limited period of service".
In a termination letter dated May 11 last year, Ms Dwyer was told her behaviour after she was informed of her termination "amounted to gross misconduct". The company's subsequent statement to the court claimed that Ms Dwyer was being "unreasonable" and seeking funds that were "not deserved".
But the Chief Industrial Magistrates Court found the "gross misconduct" claim was not valid. It ruled she was entitled to five weeks' notice for the termination, plus the two weeks' annual leave.