For once, the little guy has won! According to this article, a man who was over-paid a total of $70,000 by Air New Zealand, over a period of several years, does not have to pay any of the money back. Moreover, the court has awarded him costs: in other words, Air New Zealand not only doesn't get their money back, but they have to pay his legal bills as well as their own.
Normally, if someone is over-paid, I'd say that the honest thing to do is to give the money back. But in this case, not only was his salary never specified by Air New Zealand, but he queried the amount he was being paid several times over several years. Every time he queried his payment, he was told that it was correct. Almost a year after the over-payment was identified, they sacked him, saying they could no longer trust him!
It seems to me like he did all he could to do the honest thing. I suspect that when the over-payments became known to the bureaucracy, they sacked him to cover their own blunderings.
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