Retired after 34 years on the road, with 56 weeks of leave missing

Mr Sutton drove livestock trucks for Edyvane's Transports, a family company, for 34 years. When he retired on 5 July 2019 the company's letter said he was owed four weeks' holidays. He believed he was owed far more, and sued the company and its director, Ms Edyvane.

The company's main records were about 600 pages of handwritten workbooks in a shorthand Ms Edyvane had invented. Judge Riley could not make out most of the entries on a page even with counsel's explanations, and found the workbooks were not legible. No record showed his leave balance from time to time. That shifted the burden of proof: under s 557C the employer had to disprove his claim, and it could not. The court found 56 more weeks of annual leave owing, worth $67,200.

Before his knee surgery in 2015 and 2016 he asked for 70 days off as long service leave, not knowing he could use sick leave. The court found the company "took advantage of Mr Sutton's ignorance and vulnerability". A $4,000 payment in 2008 was an unlawful cash-out of long service leave. In all, $24,000 of long service leave was owed. In one example week, $80 for trip expenses was taken from his gross pay and later added back, so for those expenses "He was paid nothing at all"; Ms Edyvane said it was always done that way. Livestock and long-distance allowances of $4,321.40 and $1,800.64 had never been paid.

Not everything went his way: a claim for rostered days off failed, and many claims were withdrawn on the first day of trial. But the court found ten contraventions by the company, all serious. Penalties of $4,752,000 were cut to $960,000 under the totality principle, with $52,920 against Ms Edyvane. The respondents asked that the penalties go to charity. The judge saw "unedifying hostility" in that, ordered them paid to Mr Sutton, and awarded him his costs.