Bay of Islands real estate agent Dianne Wynyard failed in a claim to commissions totalling $457,000 earned by former business associate Irene Bremner after she joined rival Bayleys.
Ms Bremner said the claim against her was baseless, part of a long running campaign of harassment including bogus allegations against her to the Real Estate Agents Authority and a false $31,800 debt collection action.
The two previously sold real estate jointly from Russell under the Century 21 brand. The High Court was told they parted ways in 2013 following disagreements over how their business should be run. Ms Wynyard sued five years later, alleging Ms Bremner had unlawfully taken company records using them to generate sale commissions more properly belonging to their former business. In particular, claim was made to commissions totalling $457,070 earned on sixteen sales in the years 2014-2019.
Both Ms Wynyard and her husband gave evidence that they saw Ms Bremner copying business records when leaving mid-2103. Ms Bremner said she simply took away from the office her personal belongings and deleted from the company database personal emails not related to the business. She neither took nor deleted any company property records, she said.
The High Court was told Ms Bremner was offered employment with competitor Bayleys after returning from a short trip overseas. Justice Down ruled Ms Bremner did not take business records belonging to her former company. She did not use information from her former company in making the subsequent disputed sixteen sales, he said. In exchanges by email and through lawyers’ letters immediately after Ms Bremner’s departure, Ms Wynyard did not raise the question of supposedly missing business records.
The court was told Ms Wynyard laid a complaint about Ms Bremner in 2014 with the Real Estate Agents Authority; the complaint was dismissed. When Ms Bremner offered in 2014 to sell her shares in the Century 21 business to Ms Wynyard for one dollar, Ms Wynyard claimed Ms Bremner owed money to their company and instructed Baycorp to sue Ms Bremner to recover $31,800 allegedly owed; the claim was abandoned.
Wynyard v. Bremner – High Court (6.07.20)
20.117