Ritchies dismissed the driver after an investigation. He took the company to the ERA, which ruled against him.
Photo: Delivered / NZME

The angry man clung to the side of a departing bus, trying to stop the driver from driving away. He begged him to call the police on several passengers who he said had stolen his phone.

According to a recent ruling by the Labour Relations Authority, the driver, Fereti Fuimaono, sped off and drove away in the bus, dragging the man with him, who lost traction and fell onto the roadway, where he was trapped under the bus.

Fuimaono stopped the bus and a passer-by pulled the man onto the sidewalk.

According to the ruling, Fuimaono opened the door, looked at the man, who appeared to be unconscious, then closed the door and drove away. He did not report the incident to the bus depot call center, did not seek help from the police, did not get off the bus to check on the man who was lying on the ground or call an ambulance.

Towards the end of the trip, late in the evening, Fuimaono was contacted by police and questioned.

The man who was hit by the bus was reportedly taken to hospital with injuries that police said were stab wounds.

The incident occurred at a bus stop in Takanini and was recorded from multiple angles by surveillance cameras.

Following an investigation by his employer, Ritchies Murray Transport Solutions, Fuimaono was dismissed.

However, Fuimaono wanted his position back and filed a complaint with the Labour Relations Authority, claiming he had been unfairly dismissed.

During a hearing earlier this year, authorities were played surveillance footage from an evening in September 2022.

In this video, an angry man can be seen getting on a bus and telling Fuimaono that several people who had just gotten on stole his cellphone. One of the passengers threw the man to the sidewalk.

Over the next few minutes, the man who claimed he had been mugged tried to get on the bus to stop it. He was thrown off the bus four more times by the alleged thieves, who allegedly also attacked him, kicking and punching him.

At one point, Fuimaono could be seen getting up from the driver’s seat and trying to get the man off the bus. When the man refused to move, Fuimaono put his arms around him and carried him to the door, where the man collapsed on the pavement.

While the vehicle was being moved, the man could be heard on on-board camera footage asking Fuimaono to “call the police.”

Two of the alleged thieves then got off the bus, held the third man on the sidewalk until Fuimaono signaled that he was going to drive away, and then they got back on.

At that point, as Fuimaono drove away, the man was holding on to the door before ending up under the bus. The authorities’ ruling does not suggest Fuimaono ran over the man.

The decision said Fuimaono used a cellphone to call the bus station’s call center, but no one answered. He did not try to call 911 or check on the man.

The company launched an investigation into the incident and determined that Fuimaono failed to follow procedures for reporting acts of violence, as well as procedures for stopping to help someone who may have been hit, before firing him.

The ERA said in its decision that following his dismissal, Fuimaono made a personal complaint, alleging that a company manager told him that if he resigned, he would be rehired once the publicity surrounding the incident had died down. However, Ritchies denies making such an arrangement and no evidence of one was presented to the body.

Authorities called a hearing earlier this year to determine whether Ritchies did the right thing in firing Fuimaono.

Ritchies’ manager told authorities that Fuimaono had not given any reasonable explanation for why he had not called either the emergency services or the station after the incident, nor had he explained why he had not checked on the man or informed his superior what had happened.

The manager noted that Fuimaono knew the rules and had called the depot just three days earlier to report that a woman had boarded his bus crying and claiming a man was following her.

Although Fuimaono resigned three days after the incident, the company continued its investigation and formally fired him in October 2022.

Fuimaono said he saw a drunken scuffle between a group of people and another man, but did not see him being stabbed.

He also claimed he was not aware of his dismissal until he received his final pay slip, even though the company personally delivered it to his address.

He told authorities he knew he should have stopped after the man was pulled from under the bus and called emergency services.

Board member Robin Arthur said the recording provided “compelling evidence” that the company had reasonable grounds to believe that Fuimaono’s failure to act constituted serious misconduct.

“He failed to use the company’s emergency code or call 111 when a person attempting to board the bus, even to delay its departure, was repeatedly punched, kicked and knocked to the ground by a group of other passengers,” Arthur said.

Ultimately, Arthur concluded that the company’s decision to fire Fuimaono was fair and reasonable.

Ritchies, through its lawyer, said the ruling spoke for itself and declined to comment further.

We have contacted Fuimaono for comment.

* This story was first published by New Zealand Herald.