Truck driver wins $32k after unjustified dismissal over casual remarks

Eric Tillocksingh was delivering a couch in Christchurch in June 2026 when he made small talk with the woman who answered the door. He asked if she worked from home. He said goodbye in a way that, to her, felt lingering and strange. By the next day, he was fired.

The complaint came through Freedom Furniture, the store that had sent him out. The customer—the woman's flatmate—said she felt extremely uncomfortable. Tillocksingh had lingered longer than necessary, she said. He'd made several inappropriate comments: "Do you work from home?" and "See you soon" and "I'll see you in and around town." He'd also petted the dog without being asked. The customer and his flatmate were considering a police report. They had it all on their doorbell camera.

When branch manager Phil Sharp called Tillocksingh in the next morning, he was already certain. Sharp yelled at him, told him he was wrong, told him he shouldn't be talking to customers at all. Tillocksingh felt blindsided—Sharp hadn't asked for his version of events. Tillocksingh acknowledged asking about working from home. He said it was just small talk, nothing malicious. He denied saying "See you soon" or "I'll see you in and around town." He didn't remember a dog being there, though if one had been, he might have patted it without thinking. He didn't think he'd lingered.

The next day, Sharp escalated. Resign or be fired, he said. According to the Employment Relations Authority decision, Sharp called Tillocksingh a "stupid f****** idiot" for "messing up the Freedom contract." Tillocksingh refused to resign. Sharp fired him on the spot. When Tillocksingh asked for a termination letter, company owner Stuart Biggs ignored the email, assuming Tillocksingh was setting up a personal grievance claim and deciding there was no point responding.

The Employment Relations Authority, in its decision, found that Drivers Employment Ltd had never genuinely considered Tillocksingh's account. The company had made up its mind before investigating. Sharp and Biggs told the authority that Tillocksingh's actions were "objectively unacceptable"—but they were assuming the allegations were true without ever testing them through a proper process. The authority noted that DEL never even asked to see the doorbell footage that the customer had mentioned.

Authority member Fussey concluded that the remarks Tillocksingh made, even if they happened exactly as the customer described them, did not rise to the level of serious misconduct. "Although the woman may have experienced some discomfort from the interaction, such actions, in and of themselves, are unlikely to reach the threshold of serious misconduct, without some accompanying evidence such as inappropriate or threatening body language. It did not justify dismissal."

DEL was ordered to pay Tillocksingh $15,000 for humiliation, loss of dignity, and injury to feelings, plus $17,448.75 in lost wages—$32,448.75 total. But the decision also revealed a broader pattern. Biggs, who owns DEL, has a documented history with the Employment Relations Authority. In 2023, another company he owns, Star Moving, was found to have unjustifiably dismissed a former employee and ordered to pay $58,739 in compensation and penalties. When that went unpaid, the Employment Court fined Star Moving an additional $20,000 and warned that prison time would be next. In 2022, the same company failed to pay a former employee his Covid-19 wage subsidy and was ordered to pay $25,000 in compensation and $6,131.12 in lost wages. That also went unpaid until the Employment Court handed down a $10,000 fine. A lawyer once described Biggs as having a "long and potted history" of breaching ERA and court orders.