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The review showed long stretches with no typing at all.",story:["Suzie Cheikho joined Insurance Australia Group in May 2005. Her work included lodging documents with the financial regulator, ASIC, and it all had to be done on her company laptop. Her managers had raised concerns during that year: a letter setting out their expectations in June, a missed lodgement that, her manager said, led to a fine from ASIC, a formal written warning in November and, in December, a performance improvement plan.","As part of that plan, the insurer reviewed her laptop activity from 1 October to 16 December 2022. It reported that she had not worked her rostered hours on 44 of 49 working days and had done no work at all on four of them. In October alone there were 117 working hours with no keystrokes. Her monthly average ranged from about 35 to 80 keystrokes an hour. She was dismissed on 20 February 2023.","Ms Cheikho said she doubted the data, and that she had sometimes used other devices. In her written response to the insurer she also said she had been going through personal issues that had affected her mental health and, she believed, her work.","Deputy President Roberts found that there were 'extended periods' when she was not working as required. Her job could only be done on the laptop and the company network, and although she had access to the insurer's systems after the allegations were put to her, she did not show what work she had actually done. That was misconduct, and a valid reason for dismissal. She had been told of the concerns, met the insurer with a union support person, and given two chances to respond in writing.","Her long and satisfactory service counted in her favour, and the Deputy President accepted that the problems behind her disconnection from work were 'serious and real'. It was not enough. The dismissal was not harsh, unjust or unreasonable, and her application was dismissed."],takeaway:"Activity data from a work laptop can be enough to prove you were not working, even after many years of good service. If your health is affecting your work, it is worth raising it early rather than waiting until an investigation has started.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-unfair-dismissal-laptop-keystroke-review.jpg",alt:"A woman sits at a desk beside a dusty, unused laptop keyboard as a large magnifying glass hovers over the keys."}},{id:"branch-manager-email-scam",headline:"Fooled by an email scammer, the bank manager got her job back",name:"Kylie Smith v Bank of Queensland Ltd",citation:"[2021] FWC 4",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2021/4.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"4 January 2021",outcome:"Reinstated, with about $54,500 in lost pay and super",result:"employee",teaser:"Kylie Smith ran the Bank of Queensland's Nambour branch. A fraudster took over a customer's email, and she sent $37,500 to the wrong account.",story:["Kylie Smith had been promoted from customer service officer to branch manager at the Bank of Queensland in Nambour. In the first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic the branch was busy and short of staff, it had no lender, and she was about to go on leave. She was asked to finish a kind of loan she had never handled: a builder's final $37,500 construction payment.","On 1 April 2020, emails in the customer's email chain asked her to hold the payment because he was 'missing on some payments', and then to pay it into a Commonwealth Bank account instead. They came from a fraudster. She wrote the new account details onto a form the customer had signed in 2018, had a colleague who had not prepared the form sign as its 'preparer', authorised the payment herself, and did not phone the customer. The bank lost about $30,000. It dism
1issed her on 8 May 2020.","Deputy President Asbury found that she had missed red flags and come 'close to crossing the line between carelessness and negligence', but had not crossed it. Her failure to follow procedure was not wilful. She had not been trained for this kind of fraud, the fake emails were not strikingly odd and their hidden technical tells were apparent only in hindsight, the branch was under real pressure, and the bank had contributed: the pre-signed form should never have existed. Her remorse was genuine. Dismissal was not a sound response, so there was no valid reason for it.","Nor was she told the real reason, her manager's loss of trust in her, so she could not answer it. In a separate decision on 19 April 2021, the Deputy President ordered the bank to reinstate her as Nambour branch manager and to pay her lost wages of $48,282.83 plus $6,200.36 in superannuation. Meanwhile she had retrained, and was working in aged care on $23.09 an hour."],takeaway:"An honest mistake, even a costly one, is not automatically a valid reason for dismissal. The Commission looks at your training, the pressure you were under, what the employer itself contributed, and your record.",note:"The remedy was decided separately: [*Smith v Bank of Queensland Ltd* [2021] FWC 2060](https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2021/2060.html) (19 April 2021).",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-unfair-dismissal-branch-manager-email-scam.jpg",alt:"A busy bank manager signs a payment form at her desk, unaware of a fishing hook dangling in front of her computer screen, while customers queue behind her."}},{id:"christmas-eve-facebook-post",headline:"A Christmas Eve Facebook post cost a mine worker his job",name:"Marc Waters v Mt Arthur Coal Pty Limited",citation:"[2018] FWC 3285",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2018/3285.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"5 June 2018",outcome:"Claim dismissed",result:"employer",teaser:"Marc Waters was at home for Christmas when he posted that the mine's Christmas shifts were 'off for good'. They were not.",story:["Marc Waters was a production operator at the Mt Arthur open-cut coal mine in the Hunter Valley, and one of the elected health and safety representatives for his crew of about 200. In the week before Christmas 2017 the mine made several different decisions about whether it would run on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Mr Waters was not rostered on, but colleagues and contract workers kept asking him what was happening.","On 22 December he posted on Facebook: 'All Xmas and boxing day shifts are off'. After he learned the next day that the shifts were going ahead, he deleted it. At about 4.30 pm on Christmas Eve, after hearing that a union safety official had issued a direction to suspend mining, he posted: 'Xmas & Boxing days shifts are off for good'. The mine decided not to comply with the direction, and the shifts went ahead. He deleted that post too, but never posted a correction.","He was dismissed on 22 January 2018. He argued that the post was made at home, out of hours, and as part of his safety role. Commissioner Saunders disagreed. The post was about work shifts, aimed at his work group, and broke BHP's code against unauthorised commentary on social media. The Commissioner rejected his explanation that he posted to 'stop confusion': if that had been his aim, he would have posted the true position once he knew it.","There were points in his favour. He showed genuine remorse, and n
1o worker was shown to have missed a shift because of the post. But he was already on a final written warning from 2015, for deliberately driving trucks slowly during enterprise bargaining. The dismissal was not harsh, unjust or unreasonable, and a Full Bench later refused him permission to appeal."],takeaway:"A post made at home can still be a valid reason for dismissal if it is about your work and reaches your colleagues. A prior final warning makes it much harder to argue that dismissal was too harsh.",note:"Permission to appeal was refused: [*Waters v Mt Arthur Coal Pty Limited* [2018] FWCFB 5755](https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWCFB/2018/5755.html) (12 September 2018).",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-unfair-dismissal-christmas-eve-facebook-post.jpg",alt:"A man beside a Christmas tree types on his phone while a floodlit open-cut coal mine glows on the hills outside his window."}},{id:"station-attendant-drug-test",headline:"Sacked after one joint, a 64-year-old rail worker got his job back",name:"Sydney Trains v Gary Hilder",citation:"[2020] FWCFB 1373",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWCFB/2020/1373.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission (Full Bench)",decided:"13 March 2020",outcome:"Reinstated, with half his lost pay",result:"employee",teaser:"Gary Hilder shared a joint with an old friend and tested positive at work the next morning. Sydney Trains had a valid reason to dismiss him, but the dismissal was still harsh.",story:["Gary Hilder was the customer service attendant at Clarendon Station, the second-last stop on Sydney's Richmond line. On the afternoon of 4 October 2018 he ran into an old friend and smoked a marijuana cigarette with him, the first time he had smoked marijuana in about 30 years. He felt no ill effects. The next morning, an hour into his shift, he was randomly drug tested.","His urine sample tested positive for cannabis, at more than five times the confirmation cut-off. A test arranged through his own doctor a few days later showed him drug free, but Sydney Trains dismissed him in April 2019 for breaching its drug and alcohol policy. He was 64, had an unblemished record, had been remorseful from the start, and had almost no retirement savings.","Deputy President Sams found the dismissal unfair, ordered Sydney Trains to reinstate him, and awarded him half of his lost earnings, less what he had earned since. Sydney Trains appealed, and a Full Bench agreed with part of its argument. In safety-critical rail work, turning up with a banned level of cannabis in his system was a valid reason for dismissal, whether or not he felt affected; there is no direct test for impairment. Lack of impairment can still matter when deciding whether the dismissal was harsh.","But a valid reason is not the end of the question. Sydney Trains said it weighed mitigating factors, while its own witness described a 'zero tolerance' approach under which any breach meant dismissal, and staff had never been told what that approach really meant. Weighing that with Mr Hilder's age, record and remorse, the Deputy President was entitled to find the dismissal harsh. The appeal was dismissed, and the orders for his reinstatement and back pay stayed in place."],takeaway:"In safety-critical jobs, a positive drug test will usually be a valid reason for dismissal. Your age, record, honesty, and how clearly the policy was explained to staff can still make the dismissal harsh.",note:"The first decision, [2019] FWC 8412 (12 December 2019), made the orders for reinstatement and back pay; this Full Bench decision left them in place.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-unfair-dismissal-station-attendant-drug-test.jpg",alt:"On a quiet railway platform at dawn, an older station attendant with a broom looks at a sample jar held out by a tester in a hi-vis vest."}},{id:"take-a-sickie-text",headline:"One 'take a sickie' text ended 18 years on an island gas hub",name:"Marco Faccin v Santos WA Energy Ltd",citation:"[2023] FWC 975",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2023/975.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"13 June 2023",outcome:"$65,561.49 compensation",result:"mixed",teaser:"During industrial action, Marco Faccin texted a contractor who was due to fly to the island the next day. The contractor stayed home, and Santos dismissed Mr Faccin.",story:["Marco Faccin had worked on Varanus Island, home to a gas processing hub, since August 2004, first for Apache Energy and then for the companies that took over the operation, most recently Santos. He was a General Service Operator Lead. In September 2022, during protected industrial action over a new enterprise agreement, he checked the island's travel diary and saw that a contractor was flying out the next day to assess the crane operators.","At 8.14 pm that night he texted the contractor, who did not recognise the number: 'Are you seriously considering going to VI during protected action. Support the boys and take a sickie.' The contractor felt intimidated, reported it to his manager, and did not go, even though he said he needed the work. After an external investigation, Santos dismissed Mr Faccin on 16 January 2023.","Deputy President Beaumont found that the aim of the text was to stop the contractor coming, and that it worked. Using the travel diary for that purpose and sending the message was a wilful and serious breach of Santos's harassment policies, and a valid reason for dismissal. Mr Faccin also showed little insight. Asked at the hearing about his stance during the investigation, he said there was 'nothing wrong' with the text, 'otherwise I wouldn't have sent it', although he did express remorse later, at the disciplinary stage.","Even so, the dismissal was harsh. He was about 52 or 53, had spent most of his working life on the island, and had no history of misconduct. Reinstatement was refused because trust had broken down. Compensation started from six months' pay, less his notice pay and later earnings, then cut by 20% for his misconduct and by a further 10% because he gave little evidence of looking for other work. He was awarded $65,561.49."],takeaway:"Even with a valid reason, a dismissal can be harsh if it is out of proportion to a long, clean record. But misconduct still reduces the compensation, and so does a lack of evidence that you looked for other work.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-unfair-dismissal-take-a-sickie-text.jpg",alt:"A contractor sits on his bed at night staring at his phone, his packed bag and hard hat by the door, as his partner watches from the doorway."}},{id:"resignation-end-date-brought-forward",headline:"He resigned after 30 years. Then his employer moved the end date",name:"Christopher Barton v Viva Energy Refining Pty Ltd",citation:"[2021] FWC 193",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2021/193.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"20 January 2021",outcome:"$74,350 compensation (the maximum)",result:"employee",teaser:"Christopher Barton gave nearly a year's notice at the Geelong refinery, then tried to withdraw it. The company refused, and ended his job almost six months early.",story:["Christopher Barton started at the Geelong refinery in 1989, when it was run by Shell, and rose to shift team leader. By 2019 he had significant hearing loss, accepted as an injury suffered in the course of his work, and he was struggling with his hearing aids in the noise of the plant. On 20 June 2019 he emailed his resignation, naming 12 June 2020 as his last day, so that he could use his long service and annual leave first. The company accepted the resignation and approved leave until 13 March 2020.","In October 2019, saying his health and personal circumstances had changed, he asked to withdraw the resignation. The company refused. It handed him a letter ending his employment on 31 December 2019, more than five months before the date he had chosen, and later cancelled the leave it had approved after that date.","Commissioner Lee found the resignation was unconditional, so the company did not have to let him take it back. But by bringing the date forward, the company itself ended his employment, and it conceded that it had no valid reason to do so. The evidence about why 31 December had been chosen was 'most unsatisfactory', and pointed only to the company's own administrative convenience. As for the leave, either the company knew it had been approved and disregarded it, or it did not know, 'which is inexcusable'.","Mr Barton was 58, had an unblemished record, and was finding it very hard to get work. Reinstatement was not appropriate, because he had chosen to leave in June 2020 anyway. His lost pay up to that date came to $105,200, so he was awarded the maximum compensation then allowed: $74,350. Money that his union workmates had voted to pay him while the case ran was not deducted."],takeaway:"A resignation usually cannot be taken back once it is given. But if your employer then cuts your notice short without a good reason, that can be a dismissal, and an unfair one.",note:"The compensation cap is indexed every 1 July. $74,350, half the high income threshold, was the most that could be awarded for dismissals between 1 July 2019 and 30 June 2020.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-unfair-dismissal-resignation-end-date-brought-forward.jpg",alt:"A grey-haired refinery worker with a hearing aid stands at the refinery gates holding an open envelope as a manager walks away."}},{id:"power-station-illness-42-years",headline:"After 42 years at a power station, three days to save his job",name:"Robert Ewen v EnergyAustralia Yallourn Pty Ltd",citation:"[2021] FWC 697",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2021/697.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"10 February 2021",outcome:"$61,336 compensation",result:"mixed",teaser:"Robert Ewen had been too ill to work for well over a year when EnergyAustralia dismissed him. It had a valid reason, but the way it went about it was not fair.",story:["Robert Ewen started at the Yallourn Power Station in April 1978, and by 2020 was an assistant unit controller. From December 2018 he was off work, first with a torn shoulder ligament and then with a condition that caused his blood pressure to drop suddenly, so that he collapsed or fainted. When his paid sick leave ran out he used other leave, and in February 2020 he applied for the income protection his enterprise agreement provided.","The company sent him to an independent doctor to assess that claim. The doctor said he was not fit for his safety-sensitive role, and put his chance of being able to return within 12 months at no more than 50%. On 9 June 2020 Mr Ewen received a letter saying, for the first time, that dismissal was being considered. He was given the doctor's report only the day before the meeting. At that meeting, on 12 June, his union asked that he be allowed to use his accrued leave instead. The company refused and dismissed him with immediate effect.","Deputy President Clancy accepted the medical evidence: Mr Ewen could not do his job, and no one could say when he might. That was a valid reason. But the process was 'extraordinarily deficient' for an employee of more than 42 years. Three days, with the report arriving the day before, was not a fair chance to respond. The company had also needlessly and unreasonably refused to let him use leave that his agreement allowed. And by paying out his notice instead of letting him serve it, it pushed his leave payout into a tax year that left him $26,503 worse off.","He could not be reinstated, because he was still unfit for work. Instead he was awarded $61,336: the extra tax, plus the leave, public holiday benefits and superannuation he would have accrued had he been allowed to stay on leave."],takeaway:"Being unable to do your job because of illness can be a valid reason for dismissal. Even then, the Commission expects the employer to share the medical evidence, give you real time to respond, and consider letting you use the leave you have earned where your agreement allows it.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-unfair-dismissal-power-station-illness-42-years.jpg",alt:"An older man beside his union representative reads a thick medical report across the table from two managers, with power station cooling towers outside."}},{id:"gelato-kiosk-cheaper-juniors",headline:"Dropped from the gelato roster for cheaper junior staff",name:"Ms Angela Shadwell v Vratislav Krsek T/A Harbour-side Gelateria",citation:"[2019] FWC 7510",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2019/7510.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"14 November 2019",outcome:"$1,223.64 compensation",result:"employee",teaser:"Angela Shadwell could not cover one Friday shift. Within a day her boss told her that her role was no longer 'financially viable', and others on lower pay took her shifts.",story:["Angela Shadwell, 23, worked weekdays on a fixed roster at a small gelato kiosk inside a seafood restaurant at Scarborough, Queensland. She was a casual paid $25.99 an hour, the bare minimum award rate for her job. In May 2019 the restaurant around it was being renovated and opened only on weekends.","She had told the owner, Mr Krsek, that she could not work on Frid
1ay 17 May because of an unpaid photography internship. On 14 May he asked her to reschedule it, and she could not. Her evidence, which the Commission accepted, was that on the phone that evening she asked whether he would fire her if she did not work the Friday. He said he just would not give her any more shifts and, when she pressed, 'Well, yes.' The next morning he said the shop would close on weekdays, and texted that her role was 'currently not financially viable'.","The shop did not close. Mr Krsek asked a former employee to come back, and others covered the shifts Ms Shadwell had worked. The other staff were paid $20.79, $10.39 and $18.19 an hour; some were school-aged juniors. He argued that he had not dismissed her at all, because she had asked for a separation certificate.","Commissioner Hunt found that his phone call and texts ended her employment, and that she had a reasonable expectation of continuing to work those shifts. The real reason was that he wanted cheaper staff in place of her adult rate of pay. That was not a valid reason related to her conduct or capacity, and because he did not rely on any misconduct or performance problem, the Small Business Fair Dismissal Code did not protect him.","Ms Shadwell found a new job a week later, so her loss was small. She was awarded $1,223.64 plus superannuation, payable in two instalments."],takeaway:"Being taken off the roster can be a dismissal, even for a casual. Wanting to replace you with cheaper staff is not a valid reason related to your conduct or capacity.",note:"Ms Shadwell was a casual. Since this decision the Fair Work Act has gained a statutory definition of a casual employee (added in 2021 and rewritten from 26 August 2024). Whether a casual's service counts for unfair dismissal still turns on whether the work was regular and systematic, with a reasonable expectation of it continuing.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-unfair-dismissal-gelato-kiosk-cheaper-juniors.jpg",alt:"A young woman holding her phone stands outside a gelato kiosk in a restaurant under renovation, as two younger staff in aprons scoop gelato behind the counter."}}]],["general-protections",[{id:"safety-rep-score-sheet",headline:"Safety rep sacked after calling WorkSafe wins reinstatement",name:"Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union v Melbourne Precast Concrete Nominees Pty Ltd",citation:"[2020] FCA 931",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2020/931.html",tribunal:"Federal Court of Australia",decided:"6 July 2020",outcome:"Reinstated and $37,347 compensation",result:"employee",teaser:"A concrete factory worker was elected safety rep and rang WorkSafe the same day. A month later he was picked for 'redundancy' using a score sheet the court found was a contrivance.",story:["Paul Hes had worked for nearly eight years at Melbourne Precast, a precast concrete factory in Carrum Downs, Victoria. On 18 February 2020 the yard workers elected him their health and safety representative. Later that day he rang WorkSafe about how management had handled a day of bushfire smoke in January, and what he called a failure to consult on safety.",'The director, Mr Pichler, was told of the complaint. The same day his consultants emailed him about "the safety rep who is \'running off\' to WorkSafe". On 21 February he sent all staff a notice naming Mr Hes among people who "seem to not care" about the company\'s survival.',"On 13 March Mr Pichler announced two or three redundancies. On 20 March he called Mr Hes in, called him a poor performer and showed him a score sheet giving him 19 out of 30.","The construction union, the CFMMEU, sued alongside him in the Federal Court. The company then had to prove the dismissal was not for the reasons alleged.","It could not. Mr Pichler swore Mr Hes had the second-lowest score; a worker who scored 18 kept his job. The judge found the sheet was a contrivance to hide the real reason, that Mr Pichler's account \"defies belief\", and that Mr Hes's work had never been criticised. He was sacked for his safety role and WorkSafe complaints, in breach of s 340. The company also broke its enterprise agreement by failing to consult, and Mr Pichler was personally liable.","On 21 August 2020 the court ordered the company to give Mr Hes his job back with no break in service, and to pay $23,631.15 in lost wages and $3,716.03 in superannuation. On 14 September 2020 it added $10,000 for hurt and humiliation, and penalties of $50,000 against the company and $10,000 against Mr Pichler, payable to the union."],takeaway:"If you are chosen for redundancy soon after raising safety concerns or contacting a regulator, it is worth asking how the selection was made and keeping a copy of any document you are shown.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-general-protections-safety-rep-score-sheet.jpg",alt:"A worker in a hard hat makes a phone call beside a fresh concrete pour in a precast yard dimmed by smoke haze."}},{id:"removed-by-email-to-423-colleagues",headline:"Removal announced to 423 colleagues, then dismissed",name:"Wong v National Australia Bank Limited",citation:"[2021] FCA 671",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2021/671.html",tribunal:"Federal Court of Australia",decided:"22 June 2021",outcome:"Claim dismissed",result:"employer",teaser:"A bank manager who had raised a long list of concerns was removed from her role, announced to hundreds of colleagues, and then dismissed. The court accepted the bank's evidence that her complaints played no part.",story:["Ms Wong managed National Australia Bank's internet banking platform from July 2015. From early 2016 she raised many concerns with her managers: about staffing, about colleagues' work, and about rising costs on a large payments project. On 21 March 2017 she was removed from her role. That afternoon an email announcing her replacement went to 423 NAB employees. On 11 May 2017 the bank dismissed her.","She sued under s 340 of the Fair Work Act, saying the bank acted because of 19 complaints and two inquiries she had made. The court accepted that all three steps were adverse action, including the email, because some colleagues thought less of her after reading it.","Not every concern counted. NAB accepted that 11 of her complaints and inquiries were protected. Of the rest, the judge found two were reports and suggestions rather than complaints. The others did not concern any right or entitlement she held, so on the law as the judge applied it they were not workplace rights.","The case turned on why the bank acted. The general manager who made both decisions, Ms MacLeod, did n
1ot know about the earlier complaints when she removed Ms Wong. The judge accepted her stated reasons: the platform's performance and Ms Wong's behaviour. Ms MacLeod dismissed her, the judge found, because Ms Wong had not engaged with those concerns, not because her later emails were complaints. Ms Wong's direct manager did know of the complaints, but the judge found him a very impressive witness who genuinely held critical views of her. Whether those views were fair was not the question.","A defamation claim over the email also failed. The court found the email did not suggest misconduct or incompetence, and was in any event protected by qualified privilege. The application was dismissed."],takeaway:"If you lose your job after raising concerns, the court asks why the decision-maker acted, not whether the decision was fair. It is worth keeping a record of what you raised, with whom and when, because who knew about it can decide the case.",note:"Her appeal was dismissed by the Full Court of the Federal Court on 8 September 2022 (*Wong v National Australia Bank Limited* [2022] FCAFC 155). The Full Court held that her direct manager's reasons should have been treated as part of the bank's reasons, but upheld the finding that he was not motivated by her complaints.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-general-protections-removed-by-email-to-423-colleagues.jpg",alt:"Rows of office workers read the same email on their screens while a woman stands alone by a project board covered in sticky notes, looking at her phone."}},{id:"pay-talk-gold-mine",headline:"Sacked after telling workmates they did not have to sign a pay cut",name:"Fox v NQM Gold 2 Pty Ltd",citation:"[2025] FedCFamC2G 2034",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FedCFamC2G/2025/2034.html",tribunal:"Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2)",decided:"9 December 2025",outcome:"$25,929.42 compensation and $67,500 penalty, plus lost pay",result:"employee",teaser:"A new environmental adviser at a gold mine told two colleagues they did not have to sign contracts that cut their pay. Within weeks he was dismissed on probation, and the court found that talk was part of the reason.",story:["Mr Fox started as a Senior Environmental Advisor at NQM's Pajingo gold mine on 31 July 2023, on six months' probation. He had moved to Townsville for the job. He also joined the mine's emergency response team, which meant blocks of rescue training and, once qualified, an allowance of $6,000 a year.",'In late October and early November 2023, two colleagues told him they had been offered new contracts that would lower their pay. To one he said, "If you\'re not happy with it don\'t sign it." To the other, "If you don\'t want to sign it, don\'t." On 7 November his manager put him on a "reserve list" for further emergency response training. He asked HR for help and offered to train in his own time. The manager said no.',"On 17 November he was stood down. At a show cause meeting, HR said colleagues had made statements that he had tried to coerce them into not signing. He was dismissed on 27 November 2023, told he had failed his probation.","Mr Fox claimed he was sacked for exercising workplace rights, in breach of s 340. The court agreed. Talking with colleagues about pay is protected by s 333B, and his complaints about the training were protected too. That meant the company had to prove those were not among its reasons. It could not. No performance concerns had been raised with him before the show cause letter, and in cross-examination the manager agreed the pay talk and the training complaints were critical to his decision. The court did not accept his later attempt to take that back. The company also owed Mr Fox $884.17 in unpaid wages.","In June 2026 the court ordered NQM to pay Mr Fox $20,000 for non-economic loss, $5,929.42 to move his belongings back to Sydney, five months' lost pay plus interest (for the parties to calculate), and $67,500 in penalties, payable to him."],takeaway:"If you are dismissed soon after discussing pay with colleagues, or after asking about something your employer had agreed to, it is
1worth getting advice about a general protections claim.",note:"The remedy orders of 16 June 2026 were stayed for 28 days so that the company could apply to the Federal Court if it wished. An appeal was possible; these are the amounts the court ordered, not amounts known to have been paid.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-general-protections-pay-talk-gold-mine.jpg",alt:"A trainee in a rescue helmet and harness at the foot of a rope-rescue tower at a mine, looking back towards a site office with its blind pulled down."}},{id:"nurse-key-manager-not-called",headline:"Dismissed nurse wins because a key manager did not testify at trial",name:"Palfreyman v Alfred Health (No 2)",citation:"[2024] FedCFamC2G 914",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FedCFamC2G/2024/914.html",tribunal:"Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2)",decided:"18 September 2024",outcome:"$22,000 compensation and $8,000 penalty",result:"mixed",teaser:"A nurse practitioner who complained of bullying was dismissed after a long injury absence. The hospital could not prove her complaint played no part, because the manager who set the dismissal in motion did not give evidence at the trial.",story:["Ms Palfreyman was the aged care nurse practitioner at Alfred Health, a Victorian public hospital, from 28 September 2015. She worked in an outreach team giving acute care to elderly people at home and in aged care. In late November 2018 she lodged a workers' compensation claim for anxiety she put down to bullying in her team, and on 30 November 2018 she stopped work. In February 2019 she made a written bullying complaint. An external investigator found some of her allegations substantiated.","She never went back. Her doctors certified that she could work as a nurse practitioner, but not in that team, and later that she could work with full duties outside Alfred Health. Her workers' compensation payments stopped on 22 May 2021 after 130 weeks. On 8 September 2021 the hospital dismissed her on the ground of medical incapacity.","She claimed the dismissal was because of her complaint and her rights under workplace safety law. The hospital had to prove its real reasons. The court accepted that the senior managers who approved the dismissal acted for benign reasons. But the process began with a recommendation from the director of nursing, and the hospital had no evidence from her at the trial. Its request to file her evidence on the first day of trial was refused. Without it, the court could only speculate about her reasons, and that was not enough. The court found the hospital breached s 340(1). A separate claim that it broke the enterprise agreement by failing to get her back to work failed.","At a later hearing on remedy, the court found her dismissal for incapacity was inevitable at about the same time, so she lost no wages. She sought $200,000 for hurt and distress. The court awarded $22,000, plus interest, and ordered an $8,000 penalty paid to her. It found the breach was not deliberate and refused to make a declaration."],takeaway:"If you are dismissed after making a complaint, your employer has to prove the complaint was not part of its reasons, and that usually means evidence from everyone who shaped the decision. Winning on that point does not always mean lost wages, though: if the job would have ended anyway, compensation may be limited to the hurt and distress.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-general-protections-nurse-key-manager-not-called.jpg",alt:"An empty witness box in a courtroom, with a lawyer glancing at it and a nurse watching from the gallery."}},{id:"redundancy-brought-forward-after-sick-leave",headline:"A planned redundancy, rushed forward after sick leave",name:"Farragher v PBE Rutherford Mining Pty Ltd",citation:"[2024] FedCFamC2G 695",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FedCFamC2G/2024/695.html",tribunal:"Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2)",decided:"2 August 2024",outcome:"$84,724 compensation and $51,282 penalties",result:"employee",teaser:"A general manager told his new boss that a
1workplace conflict was harming his health. After sick leave and a workers compensation claim, a redundancy planned for mid-2022 was brought forward.",story:["Neal Farragher was general manager of CouplerCo, a PBE Rutherford Mining division at Tomago, NSW, that makes couplers, the plugs for medium voltage electrical cables. He started in October 2018. In 2021 tensions grew between him and the office manager. On 15 October 2021 he told the new managing director, David Meyn, that the issues were affecting his physical and mental health.","He spent the next week off on a doctor's certificate, during which his server access was restricted. Back on 25 October, he asked for mediation. The court found Mr Meyn effectively refused it and instead raised redundancy. From 1 November Mr Farragher was off unwell again. On 5 November a letter warned that the company would treat him as having abandoned his job if he did not report for duty on Monday. That afternoon he lodged a workers compensation claim.","The company had planned since August 2021 to make his role redundant in June 2022. On 8 November Mr Meyn told a colleague they needed to âpush onâ with the restructure. Mr Farragher's employment ended on 5 January 2022.","The company said it was a planned redundancy. The court found it had been deliberately brought forward, and the company could not prove that his complaint, his personal leave and his workers compensation claim were not reasons for it. That breached s 340; dismissing him partly for his October sick leave breached s 352. The judge found Mr Meyn's evidence that the insurer had cleared the move untruthful, and held him personally involved.","A later judgment awarded $34,724.44 for lost pay to June 2022 and $50,000 for hurt and distress. Future loss was refused: he would almost certainly have been made redundant in June 2022 anyway, and the medical evidence did not tie his later illness to the dismissal itself. Penalties of $39,960 against the company and $11,322 against Mr Meyn were ordered to be paid to Mr Farragher."],takeaway:"If a restructure suddenly speeds up after you raise a complaint, take sick leave or make a workers compensation claim, it is worth getting advice. A redundancy planned in advance does not let an employer bring it forward for a prohibited reason.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-general-protections-redundancy-brought-forward-after-sick-leave.jpg",alt:"Heavy cable plugs on a workshop bench, with an empty office and a dark computer screen behind them."}},{id:"dealership-stand-down-disclosure",headline:"Dealership boss sacked for telling the car brand about a stand-down",name:"Green v Preston Motors Pty Ltd",citation:"[2022] FedCFamC2G 205",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FedCFamC2G/2022/205.html",tribunal:"Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2)",decided:"25 March 2022",outcome:"Claim dismissed",result:"employer",teaser:"A Porsche dealership's general manager said he was stood down and sacked because he had complained about his CEO. The court found the real reason was that he told the car brand's Australian distributor about a possible shutdown before it was announced.",story:["Mr Green became general manager of Porsche Centre Brighton, a Melbourne dealership in the PM Group, in July 2018. From about October 2019, he said, the group's CEO bullied and intimidated him in meetings. He complained several times to the group's HR manager.","In March 2020, as COVID-19 arrived, the CEO recommended standing staff down. On 27 March 2020 the board stood down the entire workforce, Mr Green included, for six weeks. The CEO wanted staff to hear the news from management first. On 26 or 27 March, Mr Green rang a senior manager at Porsche Cars Australia, the brand's Australian distributor, and told him the business might be shut down. When the CEO heard about the call he opened an investigation, and on 30 March 2020 he dismissed Mr Green with immediate effect for disclosing confidential information.","Mr Green sued under the general protections. The court accepted that his complaints to HR were workplace rights, and that the stand-down and the dismissal were adverse action. Under s 361, the company then had to prove its real reasons.","It did. The court found the CEO direct but not aggressive, and believed him when he said he did not know about the complaints. The CEO alone decided to dismiss Mr Green. An outside HR adviser who helped him was not called as a witness, but the court found she was only an adviser, not a decision-maker. The information was confidential and n
1ot yet public, and Mr Green had been warned before about sharing information with Porsche. A less senior employee who disclosed information got only a warning, but the court accepted that trust in a senior manager mattered more. The stand-down covered every employee for COVID business reasons, and Mr Green accepted he was not its target.","Because breaching confidentiality was serious misconduct under his contract, he was not owed notice either. All his claims were dismissed."],takeaway:"Complaining about how you are treated is protected, but it does not shield you from action taken for a separate, genuine reason such as misconduct. If you are dismissed soon after complaining, it is worth looking closely at who made the decision and what reasons they can prove.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-general-protections-dealership-stand-down-disclosure.jpg",alt:"A manager in a glass office beside a car showroom speaks secretly into his phone while staff outside carry on, unaware."}},{id:"school-bus-run-pay-rise",headline:"Taken off her school bus run after asking for a pay rise",name:"Bell v Ouyen Hotel Pty Ltd",citation:"[2020] FCCA 1505",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCCA/2020/1505.html",tribunal:"Federal Circuit Court of Australia",decided:"19 June 2020",outcome:"$60,000 penalties, $10,299 back pay and $5,000 damages",result:"employee",teaser:"A country school bus driver asked for back pay and payslips. Within weeks she was taken off the run she had driven for years, and the court found that was unlawful.",story:["Elaine Bell had driven the school bus between Ouyen and Hattah, on and off, since about 1989. The bus was kept at her home. When Ouyen Hotel Pty Ltd took over the run in 2012, she kept running it much as she always had. She never received a payslip.","In February 2017 the run was made longer. On 9 May 2018 Ms Bell wrote to the company's director asking for a pay increase, back pay and monthly payslips. The director's answer was to take her off the run. The bus was collected from her in June and she was offered a different run, which she did not want. On 3 August 2018 she told him she could not keep working for him.",'She brought a general protections claim. The company\'s main defence was that she had simply resigned. Judge Burchardt found that asking for more pay and for payslips was a workplace right, and the company had to prove it acted for some other reason. It could not. The judge was "entirely satisfied" that the director meant to change her circumstances to her detriment because of her complaint. Removing her from the run was adverse action under s 340.',"The judge also found that taking away a job she had held for so long left her no real alternative but to resign. That was a repudiation of her contract and a forced resignation. She also proved she had been underpaid under the award, and that no payslips were ever given. A coercion claim and a claim for a year's lost income failed.","In a
1second judgment in September 2020, the court ordered the company to pay her $10,299 in unpaid wages, $5,000 for hurt and distress caused by the director's offensive conduct towards her after she left and interest. It also imposed $60,000 in penalties for the three breaches and ordered that they be paid to Ms Bell."],takeaway:"If you are moved off your usual work soon after asking about your pay or payslips, it is worth getting advice. Leaving because of that treatment is not necessarily the same as choosing to resign.",note:"The company's main defence was that Ms Bell resigned. Since 7 July 2026, under Act No. 62 of 2026, an alleged dismissal is enough for a general protections dismissal claim to get through the Fair Work Commission stage, so a dispute about whether a worker resigned no longer blocks that step.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-general-protections-school-bus-run-pay-rise.jpg",alt:"A woman stands at her country front gate watching the school bus she used to keep at home being driven away."}}]],["redundancy",[{id:"fifteen-years-then-an-uber-home",headline:"Fifteen years as the first salesman, then an Uber home",name:"Orientile Pty Ltd v Carson Q Zhang",citation:"[2026] FWCFB 162",url:"https://www.fwc.gov.au/document-view/decisions/orientile-pty-ltd-v-mr-carson-q-zhang-2026-fwcfb-162",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission (Full Bench)",decided:"7 July 2026",outcome:"$31,652.93 compensation upheld on appeal",result:"employee",teaser:"Mr Zhang was a tile importer's first salesman. One morning the owner decided he could not afford three sales reps, and by the end of the meeting Mr Zhang was handing back the keys to the company car.",story:["Carson Zhang sold imported tiles for Orientile, a business with nine employees. He was its first sales representative and had been there almost 15 years. On the morning of 28 February 2025 the owner, Mr Gao, decided that slow sales meant the business could not afford three sales reps. Mr Zhang was called into a meeting and told he was the one going.","The meeting opened with the news and moved straight to what he would be paid. He was asked to clear his things out of the company car and hand over the keys, and Mr Gao arranged an Uber to take him home. He was paid five weeks' wages in lieu of notice and his leave, but was given no written notice.",'Mr Zhang claimed unfair dismissal. Orientile said it was a genuine redundancy. Mr Gao called the meeting a "consultation session", but he accepted he had not read the award\'s consultation clause until he was preparing his response to the claim.','The Deputy President found there had been no consultation, so the dismissal was not a "genuine redundancy" in the legal sense, and it was unfair. He ordered Orientile to pay $31,652.93 in compensation, plus superannuation. The Full Bench described that award as covering four weeks for the consultation that should have happened and a further 12 weeks\' pay recognising his long service and the loss of his livelihood. Orientile appealed, arguing among other things that a business its size should not be held to the strict consultation rules in its award.','The Full Bench dismissed the appeal. Small businesses are not exempt from award consultation, it said, and partial or "technical" compliance is not enough. Here the failure was not merely procedural: "it was non-existent". It also noted that Mr Gao signed a small business checklist declaring he had consulted, but only after Mr Zhang had filed his claim.'],takeaway:'A small employer still has to follow the consultation clause in your award before making you redundant. If you were simply told your job was gone, with no real chance to put your side, the redundancy may not be "genuine" and you may be able to challenge it.',note:"This case is about whether the redundancy was genuine for unfair dismissal purposes, not about redundancy pay. Employers with fewer than 15 employees (counting associated entities) generally do not have to pay redundancy pay under the National Employment Standards (s 121), and the Commission noted that s 119 did not apply to Orientile. There is an exception where the business became small by shedding staff in the six months before it went into liquidation or bankruptcy.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-redundancy-fifteen-years-then-an-uber-home.jpg",alt:"A salesman waits on the kerb outside a tile warehouse as a rideshare car arrives, while the owner holds the company car keys behind him."}},{id:"said-no-to-the-new-role",headline:"He said no to a new role and lost 16 weeks' redundancy pay",name:"Utility Mapping (Aust) Pty Ltd Trading AS Utility Mapping",citation:"[2025] FWC 2805",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2025/2805.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"19 September 2025",outcome:"Redundancy pay cut from 16 weeks to nil",result:"employer",teaser:"After almost 10 years, Mr Jones's state manager job was made redundant and he was offered a national role on the same salary. He turned it down and claimed his redundancy pay. The Commission reduced it to nothing.",story:["Alexander Jones had worked for Utility Mapping, a business that searches for underground utilities, for almost 10 years. By 2025 he was its Victorian State Manager, based in Melbourne, with eight direct reports, a salary of $157,500, a car allowance and a bonus.",'In mid-2025 the company told him his state manager position was redundant and offered him a new National Technical Lead role. The salary, allowances and conditions were the same. At a final meeting on 6 June 2025, after getting legal advice, Mr Jones read a prepared statement declining it as "not a suitable alternative employment". His employment ended. Under the National Employment Standards he would otherwise have been owed 16 weeks\' redundancy pay.','The company asked the Commission to reduce that to nil under s 120, which allows a reduction when the employer finds the worker "other acceptable employment". Mr Jones pointed to real differences. The new job was less senior, reported to a less senior manager and had far fewer direct reports. It was likely to mean more interstate travel, and he had two young children. Its bonus targets had not been set.','The Deputy President agreed the role was less senior, but found it was still acceptable. The work was of a like nature, he would not have had to relocate, and the pay was the same. The company genuinely wanted to keep him. Mr Jones was not obliged to take the role or to raise his concerns, the Deputy President said, but in his view Mr Jones "acted hastily", turning the role down on legal advice before the company could deal with his concerns about bonus targets and travel. The safest option, he said, would have been to take the role and look for other work from there. His redundancy pay was reduced from 16 weeks to nil.'],takeaway:"If your employer offers you another job when your role is made redundant, think carefully before saying no. Put your concerns to them and give them a chance to answer: turning down an acceptable offer can cost you some or all of your redundancy pay.",n
1ote:"Mr Jones sought to appeal. On 6 November 2025 a Full Bench refused permission to appeal, finding no arguable error (*Jones v Utility Mapping (Aust) Pty Ltd* [2025] FWCFB 255). It also said there was a real question whether the employer had ended his employment at all. Redundancy pay under s 119 is owed only where the employer ends the employment because it no longer needs the job done, and at the appeal hearing Mr Jones's own counsel said the employment ended by agreement. The original decision made no finding on that point.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-redundancy-said-no-to-the-new-role.jpg",alt:"A manager stands by a work ute holding a folded sheet of paper while his underground-locating crew scans the road behind him."}},{id:"one-guard-picked-from-seventy",headline:"One armoured-van guard picked from 70, and no one could say why",name:"Sergey Kukalev v Prosegur Australia",citation:"[2018] FWC 7524",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2018/7524.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"18 December 2018",outcome:"Reinstated",result:"employee",teaser:"When a cash-in-transit company lost a big bank contract, one armoured-van officer in Victoria lost his job. At the hearing, the company could not say why it had picked him.",story:["Sergey Kukalev was an armoured vehicle officer at Prosegur's Clayton depot in Victoria, in the cash-in-transit business. He had worked there since 2013, after an earlier eight-year stint with the company that ended when he resigned in 2011.","In 2017 Prosegur lost a major contract with ANZ. Even after new Westpac work, its work volume was down about 15%. On 19 January 2018 Mr Kukalev finished his run, unloaded his truck and signed out. Two managers met him in the depot kitchen, told him he was redundant with immediate effect, gave him a letter and escorted him from the premises. He said no reason was given, and no one had consulted him.","Prosegur said this was a genuine redundancy. But the manager who made the decision had left the business, and its witness could find no records of any consultation or of why Mr Kukalev was chosen. Victoria had 70 to 80 armoured vehicle officers, and his was the only officer position cut. The witness could not explain why.",'The Commission accepted the business had shrunk and that his permanent role was no longer needed. But the enterprise agreement required consultation about redundancies, and none had happened, so it was not a genuine redundancy. Mr Kukalev was not even the most junior full-time officer at Clayton. The Deputy President said it was "hard to envisage a redundancy program more poorly executed", and found the dismissal unjust and unreasonable.',"Mr Kukalev wanted his job back, and he got it. The Commission ordered him reinstated with his continuity of employment kept. It made no order for lost pay, because his redundancy payout and his new casual earnings covered what he had lost. He had also suggested his earlier workers compensation claim was the real reason he was picked; the Commission found no evidence of that."],takeaway:"If you are picked for redundancy, you can ask how and why you were chosen and whether your award or agreement required consultation. Where an employer cannot answer, reinstatement is one of the remedies the Commission can order.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-redundancy-one-guard-picked-from-seventy.jpg",alt:"Two managers hand an envelope to a uniformed armoured-van guard in a depot kitchen, with the van parked in the bay outside."}},{id:"store-refit-one-vacancy",headline:"A store refit, four redundancies, and the one who applied for a vacancy",name:"Carmen Houdayed v David Jones",citation:"[2024] FWC 1493",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2024/1493.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"7 June 2024",outcome:"Three claims dismissed; one allowed to proceed",result:"mixed",teaser:"David Jones shrank its Burwood store from three floors to one for a refit. Four long-serving part-timers challenged their redundancies. Three lost. The one who had applied for a vacant beauty role got past the first hurdle.",story:["In January 2024 David Jones began refurbishing its Burwood store. For around 10 months it would trade on one level instead of three, and afterwards on two. It kept 39 staff at the store, redeployed 19 to other stores, and made 16 roles redundant. On 27 January 2024 four part-time staff from homewares and accessories lost their jobs: Carmen Houdayed, Saud Abu-Samen, Antoinette Grixti and Helena Nesci.","They challenged the dismissals, representing themselves. Much of their case was about favouritism in who was kept on. The Commissioner explained he had no power to overrule who an employer selects when the job itself is no longer needed. They also argued casuals were doing their work. The store's figures showed total hours, casual hours included, had fallen by more than half.",'When they were told their roles were redundant, each was given a list of vacant jobs. Ms Houdayed, Mr Abu-Samen and Ms Grixti did not apply for any. Ms Nesci, who had nearly 10 years at David Jones and experience in beauty, applied for a part-time Clinique beauty consultant role at the Elizabeth Street store. David Jones said she was not suited to its "faster paced, elevated clientele".','The Commission found the jobs had gone and David Jones had consulted as its agreement required. For the three who had not applied, redeployment was not reasonable, so their redundancies were genuine and their claims were dismissed. Offering them casual work would not have been redeployment either. Ms Nesci was different: she "would have adjusted quickly" to the Clinique role, so her dismissal was not a genuine redundancy. Whether it was unfair was left for a later hearing.','The Commissioner added that low scores in the store\'s skills assessment did not mean they were poor employees. All four had "earned the right to be proud of their long careers".'],takeaway:"If you are given a list of vacancies when your job is made redundant, apply for anything you could reasonably do, even if it is not a perfect fit. It may keep you employed, and it can matter if you later challenge the redundancy.",note:"The Commission quoted the Full Federal Court's decision in *Helensburgh Coal Pty Ltd v Bartley* on redeployment. The High Court dismissed the appeal from that decision in [2025] HCA 29, holding that redeployment is not limited to existing vacancies and that the Commission can ask whether the employer could have changed how it uses its workforce, such as its contractors. A similar case today would be argued with the High Court's decision in mind. No later published decision on Ms Nesci's unfair dismissal claim was found (searched 1 October 2026).",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-redundancy-store-refit-one-vacancy.jpg",alt:"In a department store half-closed for renovation, one shop assistant writes at a cosmetics counter while three colleagues hesitate by a noticeboard."}},{id:"sacked-the-next-afternoon",headline:"Told her job was gone, then dismissed the next afternoon on leave",name:"Alana Fayad v NobleOak Aspire Pty Ltd",citation:"[2020] FWC 6475",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2020/6475.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"10 December 2020",outcome:"$32,987 compensation",result:"employee",teaser:"A life insurer told a call centre worker her role was redundant in a meeting of 15 to 20 minutes, and handed her a letter inviting her to think about other jobs over the next couple of days. The next afternoon she was dismissed.",story:["Alana Fayad w
1orked in the call centre of NobleOak's Genus life insurance business, answering queries and complaints and keeping customers. Counting her time with the business NobleOak had taken over, she had been there since June 2014. In 2020, as COVID-19 hit, NobleOak merged two client service teams. Twenty positions went, 16 new ones were created, and four roles, including hers, did not fit the new structure.",'On 3 June 2020 she was called to a meeting of 15 to 20 minutes and told her role was redundant. She broke down and cried. She was given a letter inviting her to spend "the next couple of days" thinking about redeployment, with a list of vacancies attached. She went home on authorised leave. Nobody contacted her. Late the next afternoon she was emailed a letter ending her employment. It described a consultation process that the Commissioner called "a work of fiction".','NobleOak said this was a genuine redundancy. The Commission accepted that her job really had gone. But the insurance award required consultation, and there had been none: the company "moved with indecent haste". There was also a vacant Sales and Service Consultant role. NobleOak\'s own managers agreed she could have done it, and one said she would "more than likely" have been redeployed into it had she said she was interested. Instead, they had told her they did not think she had the skills.',"S
1o the redundancy was not genuine, and the dismissal was unfair. The Commission found she would have worked in the sales role, on $55,000, for at least a year. After deducting her notice pay and taking 10% off because she had not made reasonable efforts to find work, that came to $44,932.50. The law caps compensation at roughly six months' pay, so the order was $32,987. Her 10 weeks' redundancy pay was not deducted, because redundancy pay is not wages."],takeaway:"If you are told your job is redundant, ask in writing about vacant roles, including ones you might need some training for. An employer that has a suitable job and does not genuinely offer it to you may not be able to rely on the redundancy.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-redundancy-sacked-the-next-afternoon.jpg",alt:"An empty call-centre desk with a headset and tissues, while a manager collects a sheet from a printer behind glass."}},{id:"aircraft-orders-collapsed",headline:"Aircraft orders collapsed, and the redundancy went by the book",name:"Michael Phillips v Boeing Aerostructures Australia Pty Ltd",citation:"[2021] FWC 965",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2021/965.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"23 February 2021",outcome:"Claim dismissed",result:"employer",teaser:"When COVID-19 grounded aircraft orders, a warehouse worker at an aircraft-parts plant said he had been targeted, and could have been moved to cleaning work a contractor did. The Commission found the redundancy was genuine.",story:["Michael Phillips was a materials handler in the warehouse at Boeing Aerostructures Australia's Port Melbourne plant, which makes flight control parts. He had worked there since July 2013. Then COVID-19 hit. Orders for Boeing aircraft fell sharply, and for one program the plant went from 50 monthly sets of parts to two. Since May 2020 the company had made several hundred positions redundant.",'The enterprise agreement laid down a detailed process. Workers in each group were scored by two managers, with HR and the union watching. In August 2020 Mr Phillips was told materials handler jobs would drop from twelve to nine. He was not picked in that round. When production fell again, he had the lowest remaining score. He appealed and two of his scores went up, but his ranking did not change. He tried the agreement\'s "mix and match" swap process and was found unsuitable.','Mr Phillips said he had been targeted because he spoke up about safety. He also argued Boeing should have brought back in-house the "pin cleaning" work done by a contractor and given it to him.',"The Commission rejected both arguments. It found \"no substance\" to the targeting claim: the company had commended his safety work, and the manager's scores were explained. Consultation under the agreement had been followed. Pin cleaning had been outsourced in 2016, and the company gave reasons including fatigue and injuries; the Commission found those reasons were sound. And there was only about 20 to 25 hours of that work a week. It would not have been reasonable to expect Boeing to give him part of a part-time role. The redundancy was genuine, and the claim was dismissed. He left with 44 weeks' severance pay under the agreement."],takeaway:"A redundancy run through a fair, agreed process, with scoring, a right of appeal and real consultation, is hard to challenge. A belief that you were singled out needs evidence behind it.",note:"Part of the reasoning here was that work done by a contractor is not work \"within the employer's enterprise\" for redeployment purposes ([41]). In *Helensburgh Coal Pty Ltd v Bartley* [2025] HCA 29 the High Court has since held that whether an employer could reasonably have reduced its use of contractors to free up work is relevant to redeployment. That part of this decision should be read with the High Court's decision in mind. The separate finding that there was not enough pin-cleaning work for a job rested on the facts.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-redundancy-aircraft-orders-collapsed.jpg",alt:"A materials handler holds a clipboard in a half-empty aircraft-parts warehouse beside a whiteboard line sloping downwards."}},{id:"text-message-on-maternity-leave",headline:"She asked about returning from maternity leave and was let go by text",name:"Samantha Jane Bond v Lake Illawarra Pre-School and Kindergarten",citation:"[2019] FWC 1252",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2019/1252.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"27 March 2019",outcome:"9 weeks' pay compensation plus super",result:"employee",teaser:"A childcare worker on maternity leave contacted her preschool about coming back. The reply was a text message saying she no longer fitted the job, and that an agency was ready to go if she tried to return.",story:["Samantha Bond was a childcare worker at a small preschool in the Illawarra region of New South Wales, which had only three or four staff. She started there in April 2014 and went on maternity leave in November 2017. In September 2018 she contacted the preschool about her return to work.",'The reply came by text message at 4:31pm on 18 September 2018. Unless she had completed her diploma, it said, she "no longer fit the job description", and "my agency ready to go if you try to return". Ms Bond said she had only ever been employed as a Certificate III worker. The preschool later told the Commission her position had been made redundant: enrolments were low, it said, and it could not afford two staff.',"The preschool did not come to the hearing or answer the Commission's written questions, and the Commissioner decided the case on the material the parties had filed. The Commissioner accepted there was a valid reason for ending the job: fewer children, and no diploma. The problem was how it was done. The Children's Services Award required the preschool to consult about major workplace changes. It had not, so the dismissal was not a genuine redundancy. Nor had it given her the chance to discu
1ss the change that the Fair Work Act requires for an employee on unpaid parental leave.","Ms Bond was dismissed by text, without warning and with no chance to respond. The Commission found the dismissal harsh and unfair. It ordered nine weeks' pay plus superannuation. That covered time for the discussion that should have happened, her notice, and an extra four weeks because she had not found work in a region with higher than average unemployment."],takeaway:"If your employer makes changes to your job while you are on parental leave, it should talk with you before the decision takes effect. A text message announcing the outcome is not consultation.",note:"The parental leave provisions of the Fair Work Act have been amended since this decision. Check the current rules on unpaid parental leave and returning to work rather than relying on this case for them.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-redundancy-text-message-on-maternity-leave.jpg",alt:"A young mother with a pram stops at a preschool gate, staring at a message on her phone."}},{id:"aged-care-contract-ended",headline:"The aged care contract ended, but the redundancy pay was still owed",name:"United Workers Union v Compass Group Healthcare Hospitality Services Pty Ltd",citation:"[2023] FCAFC 92",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCAFC/2023/92.html",tribunal:"Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia",decided:"16 June 2023",outcome:"Redundancy pay owed",result:"employee",teaser:"For years they cooked, cleaned and did the laundry in aged care homes. When the care provider brought the work in-house, their employer said losing a contract was ordinary turnover, so no redundancy pay. The Full Court disagreed.",story:["From December 2001, Compass group companies, known together as Medirest, supplied catering, cleaning and laundry services to Eldercare's aged care homes in South Australia. As the contracts were renewed, many workers stayed for years. Kerry Aylett, for example, started as a catering assistant at Eldercare's Cottage Grove home in 2005, moved across to Compass in 2008, and did the same job until 30 June 2018.",'In September 2017 Eldercare and Medirest announced that Eldercare would bring the services in-house and the partnership would end on 30 June 2018. In April 2018, 31 employees were given notice. Medirest did not pay them redundancy pay. It relied on an exception in s 119 of the Fair Work Act: no redundancy pay is due where a job ends because of "the ordinary and customary turnover of labour". Its contracts said continuous employment could not be guaranteed.',"The United Workers Union took the case to the South Australian Employment Tribunal, which sided with Medirest. On appeal, the Full Court of the Federal Court disagreed. The test, it said, is whether a reasonable person in both parties' shoes would have understood the job would end within a reasonably foreseeable time. These were jobs that an aged care home would need done for as long as it operated. Before the September 2017 announcement the workers had never been told how long the client contracts ran, and 16 of the 31 had 10 years' service. An employer cannot make losing a contract \"ordinary\" turnover just by how it runs its own business, or contract its way out of the National Employment Standards.","The Full Court held that Medirest had to pay redundancy pay to those of the 31 who had at least a year's continuous service and were not casuals. It sent the question of penalties back to the Tribunal."],takeaway:'If your employer loses a contract and lets you go, do not assume you have no right to redundancy pay. Unless it was clear that your job would end with that contract, the "ordinary turnover" exception may not apply.',image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-redundancy-aged-care-contract-ended.jpg",alt:"Two aged care support workers fold towels beside meal trolleys as an elderly resident waves from the laundry doorway."}}]],["underpayment",[{id:"sushi-cash-envelopes",headline:"Cash envelopes, pay-back slips and $15.3 million in penalties",name:"Fair Work Ombudsman v Sushi Bay Pty Ltd (in liq) (No 3)",citation:"[2024] FCA 869",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2024/869.html",tribunal:"Federal Court of Australia",decided:"5 August 2024",outcome:"$15.3 million in penalties",result:"employee",teaser:"A sushi chain paid award rates on paper, cash below the award for the extra hours, and had sponsored chefs hand part of their wages back. The Federal Court imposed $15.3 million in penalties.",story:["The Sushi Bay group ran
1sushi restaurants in New South Wales, the ACT and the Northern Territory. Its four companies had one director and chief executive, Ms Yi Jeong (Rebecca) Shin. The Fair Work Ombudsman sued over the pay of 163 workers, about 73% of the workforce, between 29 February 2016 and 26 January 2020. Most were on temporary visas.",'The court found two schemes. Under the "Dual Rate Method", staff were paid award rates by bank transfer for a set number of hours, and the rest in cash at a lower "Sushi Bay Cash Rate". One pay guide listed award rates for a level 1 attendant of $20.06 an hour on weekdays, $25.08 on Saturdays and $30.09 on Sundays, and a cash rate of $15 for all three. Couriers took cash envelopes to the restaurants each fortnight.','Under the "Deduction Method", sponsored 457 visa workers found slips in their envelopes saying how much to pay back. One chef withdrew the cash and put it in the envelope for head office; some repayments went into Ms Shin\'s personal account. Justice Katzmann found the workers got no benefit, and that, depending on the company for their visas, they were unlikely to have had "any effective choice".','Payroll records showed only the "taxable" hours: 76 in one fortnight for a chef whose actual hours, on the company\'s own spreadsheet, were 119.5. False records went to Fair Work inspectors. Even after another court penalised Sushi Bay ACT and Ms Shin in 2019, the practices continued.','Underpayments totalled $653,129.97. The court imposed penalties of $3.2 million, $5.8 million, $2.4 million and $2.3 million on the four companies and $1.6 million on Ms Shin. The companies are in liquidation, and the liquidator said they "cannot comply" with orders to repay the workers. The court ordered Ms Shin\'s penalty to be paid to the Ombudsman and shared among the underpaid workers in proportion to their losses.'],takeaway:"If part of your pay arrives in cash, or you are asked to pay any of it back, keep your own record of hours and payments. An employer cannot lawfully make you hand back wages, and a visa sponsorship does not change that.",note:"The four companies are in liquidation. When the penalties were set in August 2024 the court recorded that the employees remained unpaid; the penalty against Ms Shin was ordered to be paid out to them. Since 1 January 2025 deliberately underpaying wages can be a criminal offence under the Fair Work Act (s 327A), but that law is not retrospective and did not apply to this conduct. The liability findings are in [*Fair Work Ombudsman v Sushi Bay Pty Ltd (in liq) (No 2)* [2024] FCA 76](https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2024/76.html).",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-underpayment-sushi-cash-envelopes.jpg",alt:"A courier hands a bag of small paper envelopes to a restaurant supervisor beside an open safe, a still sushi conveyor belt in the background."}},{id:"buy-the-truck-or-lose-the-job",headline:"Buy your own truck or lose your job: decades later, still contractors",name:"ZG Operations Australia Pty Ltd v Jamsek",citation:"[2022] HCA 2",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/2022/2.html",tribunal:"High Court of Australia",decided:"9 February 2022",outcome:"Held to be contractors, not employees",result:"employer",teaser:"Two delivery drivers were told to buy their own trucks or risk losing their jobs. More than 30 years later the High Court held they had been contractors all along.",story:["Mr Jamsek and Mr Whitby left school at 14 and 15. In 1977 they started with a lighting company, and from 1980 they drove its delivery trucks. Until late 1985 or early 1986, everyone agreed, they were employees.",'In late 1985 Mr Jamsek and another driver asked for a pay rise. The company refused, and offered its drivers the chance to "become contractors" by buying their own trucks. They were told: "If you don\'t agree to become contractors, we can\'t guarantee you a job going forward." On their accountant\'s advice each man set up a partnership with his wife. The partnerships bought trucks for $15,000 and $21,000, signed delivery contracts and invoiced the company, later charging GST.',"They delivered for the company until the arrangement ended in 2017, then sued for the entitlements of employees, including under the Fair Work Act and for long service leave. The trial judge held they were contractors. The Full Court of the Federal Court disagreed. It looked at how the relationship had worked over the decades and at the company's superior bargaining power.",'The High Court allowed the company\'s appeal. No one claimed the contracts were a sham, so their written terms decided the character of the relationship. That the company had the upper hand when they were made "did not alter the meaning and effect of the contract". The contracts were with the partnerships, which owned the trucks, paid their running costs and operated them. As two judges put it, where the work depen
1ds on "a substantial item of mechanical equipment" supplied by the worker, "the personal is overshadowed by the mechanical".',"A separate question, whether the drivers counted as employees under a wider definition in the superannuation guarantee law, was sent back to the Full Court. In March 2023 it held that they were not employees under that definition either. For Fair Work Act claims, Parliament has since changed the test."],takeaway:"Signing a contractor agreement can decide your rights, so get advice before agreeing to switch from employee to contractor. Since August 2024 the Fair Work Act also looks at how the work is really done, not only at the contract.",note:"Overtaken in part by statute. From 26 August 2024, s 15AA of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) requires the employee-or-contractor question to be decided by the real substance, practical reality and true nature of the relationship, including how the contract was actually performed. The contract-first approach applied here no longer governs that question for Fair Work Act purposes. The companion case decided the same day, *CFMMEU v Personnel Contracting* [2022] HCA 1, went the other way for a labour-hire worker. The superannuation question sent back by the High Court was decided against the drivers in [*Jamsek v ZG Operations Australia Pty Ltd (No 3)* [2023] FCAFC 48](https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCAFC/2023/48.html).",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-underpayment-buy-the-truck-or-lose-the-job.jpg",alt:"A manager holds out a delivery truck's keys to two uneasy drivers on a factory loading dock stacked with cartons."}},{id:"one-shift-dog-festival",headline:"Never paid for one shift at a dog festival, he went to court",name:"Ingleton v Boswell (No 2)",citation:"[2025] FedCFamC2G 1925",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FedCFamC2G/2025/1925.html",tribunal:"Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2)",decided:"24 November 2025",outcome:"$286.77 owed, plus a $9,390 penalty ordered paid to him",result:"employee",teaser:"An 18-year-old was never paid for a 9.5-hour Sunday shift. The court declared the breach a serious contravention and ordered a $9,390 penalty paid to him.",story:["On Sunday 28 July 2024, Mr Ingleton, then 18, worked as casual event staff at a dog festival in Penrith. He directed stallholders to their sites, set up marquees for the competition ring and handed out programs, from 7.00 am to 5.00 pm with a 30-minute unpaid break: 9.5 hours of work. He was never paid.",'The organiser, a sole trader running Woof Fest Festival, had confirmed by text to Mr Ingleton\'s mother that the Miscellaneous Award covered the work. He later emailed a payslip showing the award rate, and told the family and their lawyers that Mr Ingleton "will be paid". No money came. Mr Ingleton sued, and his father personally served the court papers. The organiser filed nothing and did not come to court.','Judge Papadopoulos worked out the pay. The junior rate for an 18-year-old was $16.02 an hour, and the Sunday casual rate of 175% took it to $28.04, so $266.38 was owed for the day, or $286.77 with interest. Because the organiser knew the award applied, knew the rate and knew he had not paid, the court declared the breaches "serious contraventions".','Before judgment, the organiser emailed the judge\'s chambers demanding the hearing be put on hold and warning: "You will face serious legal actions". His application for the judge to step aside failed.','The maximum penalty was $187,800 and Mr Ingleton asked for $130,000. The judge set 5% of the maximum, $9,390, giving "significant weight" to the small loss and the single day of work, and ordered it paid to Mr Ingleton. The organiser was also ordered to pay $1,500 towards his costs.'],takeaway:"Even a small unpaid amount can be worth pursuing. Keep the texts, emails and payslips that show what your employer knew, because they can turn an unpaid shift into a serious contravention.",note:'The shift was worked after 27 February 2024, so the current test for a "serious contravention" (knowing or reckless) applied. It was before 1 January 2025, when deliberate underpayment became capable of being a criminal offence. The earlier default judgment is [*Ingleton v Boswell* [2025] FedCFamC2G 977](https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FedCFamC2G/2025/977.html).',image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-underpayment-one-shift-dog-festival.jpg",alt:"A young event worker directs a woman and her poodle past market stalls at a busy dog show on a country showgroun
1d."}},{id:"furlough-silence-was-yes",headline:"Unpaid during COVID, he never said no, so the court said he agreed",name:"Olimpio v Dentons Australia",citation:"[2026] FedCFamC2G 1444",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FedCFamC2G/2026/1444.html",tribunal:"Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2)",decided:"27 July 2026",outcome:"Small claim dismissed",result:"employer",teaser:"A boardroom concierge put on an unpaid furlough during COVID claimed $41,422 in lost wages. Because he never rejected the furlough, the court held he had agreed to it.",story:["Mr Olimpio started at the law firm Dentons in Sydney on 2 December 2019 as a boardroom concierge. A few months later COVID-19 restrictions closed the boardrooms, and without in-person meetings his job could not be done.",'In April 2020 the firm proposed, as an alternative to redundancy, cutting hours and pay to nil: a "furlough". Its correspondence said that without a choice by the deadline, "we will presume you have accepted the final proposal". Mr Olimpio asked questions, which were answered, but did not reject the proposal. The furlough was extended twice, each time with an invitation to say no. He did not. He went back to work on 11 January 2021 and later resigned.','He then brought a small claim for $41,422.05 in wages for the unpaid period, plus leave and superannuation. His contract said any amendment had to be agreed in writing and signed, and another clause, he said, meant any direction not to work had to be on full pay. Silence and questions, he argued, were not acceptance. Dentons relied on his emails and on Teams messages it said he had sent, one reading "accepted lol"; he challenged that evidence.','A Registrar dismissed the claim. Judge Humphreys heard it afresh and dismissed it again. Leave granted by an employer "as an indulgence" outside the contract is usually unpaid, the judge said, and that was what the firm had done instead of making him redundant. The correspondence showed he could have rejected the proposal. "His acceptance was occasioned by his silence", and silence was "specifically contemplated" in the letters. With no pay owed for the period, the court did not need to decide which award applied.'],takeaway:"If your employer proposes a change and says silence will be taken as agreement, reply clearly and in writing if you do not agree. Asking questions is not the same as saying no.",note:"Decided on 27 July 2026; no appeal had been found when this was checked on 1 October 2026. Small claims under the Fair Work Act can be brought for up to $100,000, the limit since 1 July 2023.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-underpayment-furlough-silence-was-yes.jpg",alt:"During lockdown a young man reads an email at his kitchen bench, an unused concierge waistcoat hanging behind him and a calendar crossed off on the wall."}},{id:"paying-her-own-wages",headline:"A sponsored trainee accountant who, in effect, paid her own wages",name:"Kaur v P & G Accounting Solution Pty Ltd (No 2)",citation:"[2026] FedCFamC2G 478",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FedCFamC2G/2026/478.html",tribunal:"Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2)",decided:"27 March 2026",outcome:"$203,832 in penalties ordered paid to her; part of her claim failed",result:"mixed",teaser:"To keep her training visa, a graduate and her brother handed cash to her sponsor, and it came back to her as wages. The court called it a kickback arrangement, though not every claim she made succeeded.",story:["Ms Kaur came to Australia from India at 16 and finished a Bachelor of Accounting in 2018. To stay, she needed an employer to sponsor her for a training visa. Through her brother's community contacts she met Mr Rajput, who owned the accounting practice KPG Taxation.",'From August to November 2018 she worked at KPG without pay. The court found this was unpaid work experience, not employment: a "quid pro quo" in which she learned the ro
1pes while the sponsorship paperwork went through. That part of her claim failed. Her visa was granted and she started as an employee on 4 February 2019.',"She was not paid at all until she complained. Then, the court found, money had to come from her side first. Bank records showed $1,700 in cash withdrawn from her or her brother's account, then $1,426 in wages paid to her the next day, three pay cycles in a row. Judge Forbes was satisfied she was required to make payments to Mr Rajput \"to cover KPG's costs of employing her\".",'The judge found neither side was fully candid, and did not rule out that she and her brother went along with it at first. That made no difference: "no amount of consent can lawfully relieve an employer of its obligation to pay an employee". Her claim that she was asked for $50,000 was not proved. Her job ended on 21 May 2019. She was not a strong performer, but the refusal to keep paying was the true catalyst for her dismissal, the judge found.','The court ordered KPG to pay penalties of $169,860 and Mr Rajput $33,972, both payable to Ms Kaur, plus $17,280.81 for lost pay and $15,000 for hurt and humiliation. The scheme was opportunistic rather than systematic, so the higher penalties for serious contraventions did not apply, but the judge said the respondents "should count themselves lucky". Each side paid its own costs.'],takeaway:"An employer cannot make you fund your own wages, even when your visa depends on the job and even if you went along with it at first. Bank records of money going out and coming back can help prove it.",note:"The penalties and compensation were decided on 27 March 2026; no appeal had been found when this was checked on 1 October 2026. The findings on liability are in [*Kaur v P & G Accounting Solution Pty Ltd* [2025] FedCFamC2G 30](https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FedCFamC2G/2025/30.html). Asking for or receiving a benefit in return for a sponsorship is also an offence under the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) s 245AR, and since 1 January 2025 deliberate underpayment can be a crime under the Fair Work Act. Neither was in issue in this civil case, and the Fair Work offence does not apply to earlier conduct.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-underpayment-paying-her-own-wages.jpg",alt:"A young woman counts cash from an ATM into an envelope while her brother waits beside her on a suburban street at dusk."}},{id:"34-years-on-the-road",headline:"Retired after 34 years on the road, with 56 weeks of leave missing",name:"Sutton v Edyvane's Transports Pty Ltd (No 2)",citation:"[2022] FedCFamC2G 1062",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FedCFamC2G/2022/1062.html",tribunal:"Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2)",decided:"21 December 2022",outcome:"$960,000 penalty ordered paid to him, plus leave and allowances",result:"employee",teaser:"A livestock truck driver retired after 34 years and was paid four weeks' leave. His employer'
1s records never showed his leave balance, so it had to disprove his claim to 56 weeks more, and could not.",story:["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.'],takeaway:"Poor records can work in your favour. Where an employer has not kept the records the law requires, it may have to disprove your claim, so keep your own diary of leave taken and hours worked.",note:"The findings on liability are in [*Sutton v Edyvane's Transports Pty Ltd* [2022] FedCFamC2G 834](https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FedCFamC2G/2022/834.html), decided on 12 October 2022; this judgment set the penalties and costs.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-underpayment-34-years-on-the-road.jpg",alt:"An older truck driver frowns at a worn handwritten workbook as he leans on an empty livestock trailer at a country saleyard."}},{id:"producer-outside-the-agreement",headline:"Redundant after decades in TV, but the agreement never covered her job",name:"Michael v Network Ten Pty Limited",citation:"[2023] FCA 1091",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2023/1091.html",tribunal:"Federal Court of Australia",decided:"15 September 2023",outcome:"Claim for $393,371.10 dismissed",result:"employer",teaser:"A senior TV executive producer claimed 78 more weeks' severance under the enterprise agreement. The court found the agreement did not cover her role.",story:['Ms Michael began in television in February 1986 as a film editor with a company whose service was later recognised by Network 10. By 2020 she was "Executive Producer â Entertainment", overseeing programs such as *Bondi Rescue*, on a salary of $262,247.40. On 29 May 2020 she was made redundant.',"She was paid a little over $255,000, including 12 weeks' severance. The Network 10 enterprise agreement was far more generous: for employees with more than 30 years' service it required 90 weeks' severance. She sued for 78 weeks more, $393,371.10.",'Everything turned on whether the agreement covered her. It covered only employees in classifications listed in schedules to the Broadcasting, Recorded Entertainment and Cinemas Award. Ms Michael said she fitted "Producer" in a clause headed "Producer/Director\'s Assistant/VCG Operator". She was unusually hands-on for an executive, still editing video, operating cameras and shooting publicity photographs.','Justice Snaden accepted that the clause was confusingly drafted, blaming its "liberal useâperhaps overuseâof virgules" (forward slashes). Read in context, it covered people employed to assist producers and directors, not producers themselves, let alone executive producers. Many awards do not cover senior managers, and Ms Michael "was an executive who managed the production of television shows". Her hands-on work, though "undoubtedly to her credit", did not change that.',"The agreement did not apply to her, so Network 10 did not have to pay its severance scale. The claim was dismissed."],takeaway:"An award or enterprise agreement covers you only if your job fits its classifications, judged by the work you mainly do, not your title. Senior managers are often outside them, so check coverage before relying on their terms.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-underpayment-producer-outside-the-agreement.jpg",alt:"A woman sits alone with a thick document on her lap in a darkened television studio, the cameras under covers."}},{id:"brick-cleaner-abn",headline:"Told to get an ABN to clean bricks, he was an employee all along",name:"Gutierrez v Nguyen",citation:"[2020] FCCA 2355",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCCA/2020/2355.html",tribunal:"Federal Circuit Court of Australia",decided:"19 August 2020",outcome:"$7,480.70 in wages and super, plus interest",result:"employee",teaser:"A visa worker cleaning bricks was told to get an ABN and send invoices. When GST was added, he said, his rate quietly fell. The court called it a sham.",story:["Mr Gutierrez came from Colombia and was working in Australia on a visa. Through a mutual friend he approached Mr Nguyen for work, and in July 2015 he started as a brick cleaner. He was told he needed an ABN and had to send invoices to get paid. He was paid $16 an hour.","He had no business of his own. The equipment he used belonged to Mr Nguyen, and he had no previous skills or experience in the work. He gave evidence that in about July 2016 he was told to add GST to his invoices, but they did not go up: his hourly amount was cut by 10 per cent and GST added to the reduced figure, so the total cost to Mr Nguyen stayed the same. He also said that from about 7 November to 30 November 2016 he kept working full time and was not paid at all.",'With JobWatch acting for him, he took Mr Nguyen to the Federal Circuit Court. Mr Nguyen knew about the case but did not appear. Judge McNab found that, objectively, Mr Gutierrez was not conducting a business, and that having him invoice as if he were was "a sham arrangement" under s 357 of the Fair Work Act. He was an employee, and the Cleaning Services Award 2010 applied to his work.',"The court ordered Mr Nguyen to pay $7,480.70, made up of $4,109.59 in unpaid wages and $3,371.11 in unpaid superannuation, plus $1,484.62 in interest."],takeaway:"Having an ABN does not make you a contractor. If you use the boss's equipment, are paid by the hour and run no business of your own, you may be an employee with award wages and superannuation.",n
1ote:"Since 26 August 2024 the Fair Work Act decides whether someone is an employee by the real substance and practical reality of the relationship (s 15AA), and since 27 February 2024 an employer defending a sham-contracting claim must show it reasonably believed the worker was a contractor (s 357(2)). Both changes favour workers in Mr Gutierrez's position.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-underpayment-brick-cleaner-abn.jpg",alt:"A worker scrubs mortar off a new brick wall on a dusty building site while another man watches from the shade of a ute."}}]],["workplace-bullying",[{id:"dropping-like-flies",headline:"After 25 years, a new CEO, then an email: âDropping like fliesâ",name:"Leggett v Hawkesbury Race Club Limited (No 3)",citation:"[2021] FCA 1658",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2021/1658.html",tribunal:"Federal Court of Australia",decided:"24 December 2021",outcome:"$200,000 plus lost earnings and penalties",result:"employee",teaser:"A racing clubâs longest-serving employee was micromanaged by a new chief executive until she broke down. The Federal Court found the club negligent and ordered it to pay.",story:["Vivienne Leggett began working for Hawkesbury Race Club in January 1991, aged 28. For 25 years she found and looked after the sponsors for its race days, paid largely on commission and trusted to run her own patch. In May 2016 the club hired a new chief executive, Greg Rudolph. At their first meeting, the court found, he told her she was earning âtoo much moneyâ.","What followed was what Justice Rares called âoverbearing micromanagementâ: interrogation over a $15 parking fee, demands for long answers by close of business, her authority to make routine decisions taken away. In July she emailed him that she was losing sleep. He took legal advice and said nothing about how she was. She told three directors how she was feeling, crying as she did. None of them acted.","On 9 October 2016 the assistant starter invited her to watch a race from the barriers. Mr Rudolph rang and ordered her back. That night she emailed him a complaint and asked him to tell the board. His reply the next morning summoned her âto discuss your work performanceâ. When she sent in a medical certificate for work stress, he forwarded it to his father-in-law with the comment âDropping like fliesâ. She has not been able to work since.","The court found the club negligent. Her email and what she told the directors were warning signs that she was at risk of psychiatric injury if the bullying went unchecked. The performance meeting, and holding back her commissions, were unlawful adverse action because she had complained and taken sick leave. The judge awarded $200,000 under the Fair Work Act, saying the clubâs conduct had âeffectively destroyed Mrs Leggettâs lifeâ. A later judgment added her past and future lost earnings, free of the NSW workers compensation cap, and agreed penalties of $160,650, payable to her."],takeaway:"If the way you are being treated at work is making you unwell, it matters that you say so, in writing and to more than one person. Here those warnings were what made the employer responsible, and the complaint itself was protected by law.",note:"The amount was worked out in a later judgment, *Leggett v Hawkesbury Race Club Limited (No 4)* [2022] FCA 622, where the judge held that the limits in the NSW workers compensation law did not cap compensation under the Fair Work Act. Damages for a work injury claimed in negligence are limited differently in each state.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-workplace-bullying-dropping-like-flies.jpg",alt:"A woman at a racecourse starting gate takes a phone call that clearly upsets her while a starter looks on."}},{id:"bully-resigned-no-order",headline:"The bullying was clear. Then the bully quit, so no order could be made",name:"Mr Feyzullah Kaya v Team Global Express Pty Ltd, Salvatore (Sam) Carnibella, Christopher Catania",citation:"[2023] FWC 2685",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2023/2685.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"24 October 2023",outcome:"Stop-bullying order refused",result:"employer",teaser:"A freight worker was abused by a co-worker for months, and the Commission agreed it was bullying. But the bully resigned, and a stop-bullying order can only look forward.",story:["Feyzullah Kaya worked at Team Global Expressâs Webb Dock depot in Melbourne, which moves freight to and from Tasmania. In February 2022 he complained that a co-worker, Christopher Catania, was abusing him: name-calling, swearing, and unwanted physical contact. The companyâs own investigation upheld his complaints. Mr Catania was given a written warning and the two men were put on opposite sides of the depot.","It did n
1ot stop the bullying. On 10 June 2022 Mr Kaya left work after, he said, Mr Catania called him a âDogâ, and days later he applied for a stop-bullying order. When he briefly returned in May 2023, a second investigation found that Mr Catania had bullied him further in 2022, and the company began considering dismissing him for serious misconduct. Mr Catania resigned before it finished. Soon afterwards he sent Mr Kaya an abusive Facebook message.","Commissioner Lee found that Mr Cataniaâs conduct âmost certainlyâ amounted to bullying: repeated physical aggression and verbal abuse. The Commissioner also found that Mr Kaya had âbeen let down by his employerâ, and that his supervisor had encouraged him not to report it.","But the law gave him no power to act. A stop-bullying order exists to prevent future bullying, not to punish the past, and the man responsible had gone. The Commissioner was not satisfied that the two other men Mr Kaya complained about had bullied him, and they were being kept apart from him: one would work about 150 metres away and start two hours earlier, the supervisor would no longer manage him, and both would use separate lunchrooms and bathrooms. With no remaining risk, there was no jurisdiction to make an order, and the application was dismissed. The Commissioner stressed that this âis not a failure of the Applicantâ, and encouraged him to return to work once his doctors cleared him."],takeaway:"A stop-bullying order can only stop bullying that is likely to continue; it cannot punish anyone or pay you compensation. If the person has left, the application may end, though other routes, such as workers compensation, are separate from it.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-workplace-bullying-bully-resigned-no-order.jpg",alt:"A worker in a freight depot looks across a painted line dividing the floor towards two distant co-workers."}},{id:"treasurer-threatened-to-sue",headline:"A club volunteer secretly recorded a worker and threatened to sue",name:"Matthew Mawer & Jonathan Philip Moore",citation:"[2025] FWC 3215",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2025/3215.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"24 October 2025",outcome:"Stop-bullying order made",result:"employee",teaser:"A sporting clubâs new administrator sent members an email he had been told to send. The club treasurer, a volunteer, threatened legal action and secretly recorded the conversation.",story:["Matthew Mawer started as the part-time administrator of the Gold Coast Pistol Club on 19 June 2024. His supervisor was the club president. But the treasurer, Jonathan Moore, a volunteer committee member and director, kept trying to direct him, locked the club debit card that Mr Mawer used for day-to-day purchases, and opposed his access to the accounting software.","On 2 February 2025 the club secretary and president asked Mr Mawer to email members a notice that included the clubâs legal costs. Mr Moore took offence. He walked into the office, took the debit card from the safe, and told Mr Mawer that unless a retraction went out that day it would âgo against everyone involvedâ. He said he had âthe money to follow throughâ, and that he took on solicitors and won. He added: âdespite what others might say, I donât think youâre a bad guyâ. Mr Mawer learned the next day that the whole conversation had been secretly recorded.","Commissioner Hunt listened to the recording at the hearing. She found Mr Mooreâs claim that he forgot to switch it off was âfabricatedâ, that the âbad guyâ remark was âincredibly offensiveâ, and that he had targeted Mr Mawer as âa softer targetâ than the secretary who wrote the email. A volunteer can bully a paid worker: Mr Mawer had been bullied at work.","The Commission ordered Mr Moore to stop making covert recordings at the club or of Mr Mawer, not to restrict his access to the accounting software, to retract in writing within 14 days any implied threat to sue him, and for 12 months to give him directions only through the president. Mr Moore had filed his own bullying claim against Mr Mawer and the president. It was dismissed, the Commissioner finding he had brought the claim against Mr Mawer âvexatiouslyâ."],takeaway:"The person bullying you does not have to be your boss or even an employee: a volunteer director can be ordered to change how they treat staff. If you are threatened for following an instruction, write down what was said, and when, as soon as you can.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-workplace-bullying-treasurer-threatened-to-sue.jpg",alt:"An older man leans over a club office desk lecturing a younger administrator, a phone in his pocket glowing as it records."}}
1,{id:"two-of-nine-allegations",headline:"Seven of his nine complaints failed. Two were enough",name:"Re Camilleri",citation:"[2025] FWC 1349",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2025/1349.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"15 May 2025",outcome:"Mediation ordered; NBN appeal refused",result:"mixed",teaser:"An NBN field engineer accused his new manager of bullying him nine ways. The Commission rejected most of it, criticised the engineer too, and still found he had been bullied.",story:["Adam Camilleri has been a field engineer with NBN Co since 2016. From 1 July 2024 he reported to a new field area manager, Paul Fitzpatrick, who checked his work vehicleâs ignition data and found he often left home after 6.30am. With his unionâs help, Mr Camilleri applied for a stop-bullying order. By the end of the hearing he was relying on nine things his manager had done.","Commissioner Crawford rejected seven of them. Taking away his rostered day off for not working the required hours was reasonable management action, though the way it was done came âvery closeâ to crossing the line. Querying his time, refusing a leave request for operational reasons, and a written warning issued after a proper process were all things a manager may do. The Commissioner also found that Mr Camilleri had repeatedly disobeyed a direction about when to leave home, which the Commission assumed was lawful, because of a separate pay dispute, and that he âis not being bullied merelyâ because his movements were watched more closely.","Two allegations stuck. Mr Fitzpatrick found Mr Camilleri had broken policy by taking a rostered day off on 18 October 2024, even after Mr Camilleri pointed out that NBN Coâs own systems showed it. And he alleged in writing, without making enough enquiries first, that Mr Camilleri had missed a call-out on the Labour Day public holiday because he was at a barbecue. The Commission found he âwas actively looking for issues to raiseâ. Two unreasonable acts, unchallenged evidence of harm to Mr Camilleriâs health, and the same manager still in charge: that was bullying, with a risk it would continue.","The Commission refused to give him a new manager or cancel his warning. Instead it ordered both men to attend mediation with an external provider, arranged and paid for by NBN Co, within 30 days. NBN Coâs attempt to appeal the barbecue finding failed."],takeaway:"You do not have to win every allegation. Two proven acts of unreasonable behaviour that harm your health can be enough, but the Commission will also look hard at your own conduct, and the order it makes may be modest.",note:"NBN Co sought to appeal. On 10 October 2025 a Full Bench refused permission to appeal: *NBN Co Limited v Adam Camilleri* [2025] FWCFB 226.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-workplace-bullying-two-of-nine-allegations.jpg",alt:"A field engineer and his manager sit apart at a meeting table while a mediator sits between them."}},{id:"caught-in-the-middle",headline:"Caught in the middle of the ownersâ bitter separation",name:"Paula Taylor",citation:"[2019] FWC 1794",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2019/1794.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"21 March 2019",outcome:"Stop-bullying orders made",result:"employee",teaser:"She kept the books and the HR files for a family water-cartage business. When the ownersâ marriage collapsed, one of them turned his lawyers on her.",story:["Paula Taylor worked part time as finance, administration and human resources manager for Hoad Water Cartage, a family company carting water around South Australia from a property in the Adelaide Hills. She was a 15-year friend of co-owner Charmaine Hoad. When Mrs Hoad and her husband, managing director Mark Hoad, separated in late 2017, Mrs Taylor found herself in the crossfire.","Mr Hoadâs emails turned rude and autocratic (âstop wasting my time with trivial crapâ), and he described her as part of a âgirls clubâ and as his wifeâs âsidekickâ. He pressed her about his marriage after she asked him to stop, demanded lists of her daily tasks, and on one day sent her about 50 emails asking her to process his expenses while she was on light duties. An interim court order in the coupleâs family law case restrained him, with narrow exceptions, from directing her work. When she relied on it, his lawyers sent her a formal warning. A second w
1arning followed her refusal to prepare a warning letter against his estranged wife.","Deputy President Anderson found the bullying âserious and conducted over a prolonged periodâ. Mrs Taylor had become âcollateral damage in the matrimonial disputeâ. The warnings went out on lawyersâ letterhead because Mr Hoad âwanted to intimidate Mrs Taylor to the greatest degree possibleâ. By then she was under her doctorsâ care and on a WorkCover claim.","With the two owners unable to speak for the business with one voice, the Commission set out detailed orders itself. The warning letters were ordered withdrawn. Only Mrs Hoad could discipline or dismiss her, and she would report to Mrs Hoad. Mr Hoad could contact her only by email, professionally, not about the marriage and not through his solicitors."],takeaway:"When you are being made to take sides in your employersâ own dispute, that can itself be bullying. Stop-bullying orders can be very specific: who you report to, who can discipline you and how someone may contact you.",note:"No one appealed. On 4 February 2020, on an application by Mrs Hoad, the Commission found that Mr Hoad had bullied Mrs Taylor again since the orders were made, and varied them: he could no longer alter her role, duties or job security without Mrs Hoadâs or Mrs Taylorâs agreement, had to tell Mrs Hoad of any contact about her WorkCover claim, and could not call her a âbook-keeperâ. See *Paula Taylor* [2020] FWC 540.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-workplace-bullying-caught-in-the-middle.jpg",alt:"A woman working from home recoils as a flood of envelopes pours out of her laptop, a water truck visible on a hill outside."}},{id:"costs-after-dismissal",headline:"Sacked, he kept his bullying case going and was ordered to pay costs",name:"Mr Joseph Salama v Transport for NSW t/a Sydney Trains; Mr Laurence New; Ms Amba Francisco; Mr Charlie Keech; Ms Kirsty Sweeting",citation:"[2018] FWC 5756",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2018/5756.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"9 October 2018",outcome:"Ordered to pay costs",result:"employer",teaser:"A rail workerâs bullying application could no longer succeed once he was dismissed. He pressed on anyway, and the Commission made the rare order that he pay part of the other sideâs legal costs.",story:["Joseph Salama was a transport officer with Sydney Trains from 28 August 2013, and a union delegate and health and safety representative. In May 2017 he applied for a stop-bullying order naming four managers. He alleged they had harassed and bullied him, including by threatening disciplinary action over what they said were false allegations he had made.","On 14 August 2017 Sydney Trains dismissed him. The Commission noted that the dismissal related, among other things, to the employerâs finding that he had made false bullying allegations against those managers. Mr Salama went to the Federal Court with a separate general protections claim, alleging he had been dismissed because he made the bullying application.","Nine days after the dismissal, the respondentsâ lawyers wrote to his lawyer. With his job gone, they said, there could be no continuing risk of bullying at work, so the Commission had no power to make an order; if he did not withdraw, they would rely on the letter to seek their costs. There was no reply. Instead he asked the Commission to put the bullying case on hold until the Federal Court case was decided. In April 2018 the Commission refused, and dismissed his application as having no reasonable prospects of success.","In the Commission each side usually pays its own costs. But Deputy President Sams found that an earlier decision was âon all foursâ with Mr Salamaâs case, so it âshould have been reasonably apparent to him, and his legal advisorsâ that keeping the application alive could not succeed. He ordered Mr Salama to pay the respondentsâ costs from 19 December 2017 on the ordinary partyâparty basis, refusing the higher indemnity costs they asked for. The Commission never made a finding on whether Mr Salama had been bullied."],takeaway:"A stop-bullying order needs a risk that the bullying will continue at work, so an application usually ends when the job does, and pressing on after a warning letter can lead to a costs order. Claims about the dismissal itself, such as unfair dismissal or a general protections dismissal claim, generally have to be lodged within 21 days.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-workplace-bullying-costs-after-dismissal.jpg",alt:"A uniformed rail worker sits alone on a platform at dusk reading a letter as a train pulls away."}},{id:"ignored-good-morning",headline:"Ignored âgood morningsâ and orders sent by Slack",name:"Tao (Selina) Qu v MONARDS GOLD COAST PTY. LTD.; Tak Wing Wong",citation:"[2021] FWC 4507",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2021/4507.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"27 July 2021",outcome:"Stop-bullying order made",result:"employee",teaser:"In a small luxury watch store, a new team leader sent a Slack message to a staff member standing right beside him, swapped one warning for another, and would not say good morning.",story:["Tao (Selina) Qu was the supervisor of Monardsâ luxury watch and jewellery store in Surfers Paradise, a small shop with a handful of staff. Around March 2020 a new team leader, Tak Wing Wong, arrived from a competitor, Hourglass. Ms Qu said that within months he was suggesting she go and work there instead.","Commissioner Hunt went through the incidents one by one, and n
1ot all of them were bullying. Moving the timesheets and hiring to Mr Wong was a reasonable business decision, and asking Ms Qu to wrap watches was a reasonable direction. On the day Ms Qu fainted at work, the Commissioner watched the store footage and found Mr Wong had not acted unreasonably, apart from some condescending cleaning instructions. She also found Ms Qu had once screamed at him, and told her not to do it again.","But much else was proved. He did repeatedly suggest she could work for the competitor. Standing next to her while serving a client, he sent her a Slack message asking her to bring the client a bottle of water: âunsuitable, unreasonable and unfathomableâ. He posted a photo of an untidy counter to a group chat that senior management could see, told her she was getting a warning, withdrew it, and then gave her another for closing a cabinet too loudly: âa calculated act to intimidateâ. He put her on a performance improvement plan that âwas not warrantedâ. And two days running he ignored her âGood morningâ, the second time replying only âI heard itâ. When the companyâs director then told the team that greetings were optional, the Commissioner called it âa complete failure to meet her duty of careâ.","Monards had no bullying policy, and staff complaints about Mr Wong had gone nowhere. Finding a risk the bullying would continue, the Commission made an order to stop Mr Wong bullying Ms Qu."],takeaway:"Bullying is often a pile of small things, none of which would be enough alone. A dated record of each incident, and of every complaint you made and the response, can help the Commission see the pattern.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-workplace-bullying-ignored-good-morning.jpg",alt:"In a luxury watch shop, a manager types on his phone beside a colleague who frowns at the message on hers while a customer waits."}},{id:"disciplinary-meeting-on-hold",headline:"Twelve allegations, a meeting next day, and the FWC hit pause",name:"Application by Lindsay Rosenblum",citation:"[2023] FWC 1640",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2023/1640.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"12 July 2023",outcome:"Interim order made",result:"employee",teaser:"An accountant on sick leave was told to answer 12 misconduct allegations at a meeting the next day. The Commission heard her urgent application the next morning and put the process on hold.",story:["Lindsay Rosenblum was the full-time accounting manager for QLD Trade Services Builders, a labour hire and building services company in Airlie Beach. In June 2023 she applied for a stop-bullying order naming director Bryan Roberts and his wife, Julie Roberts, an accountant who had recently become a part-time employee of the company. Ms Rosenblum had been off work unwell since mid-April 2023, largely on unpaid leave, with a workers compensation claim pending. The company said its actions were reasonable management action.","On 5 July 2023, while the Commission was arranging a conference, Mrs Roberts wrote to Ms Rosenblum directly, although she knew Ms Rosenblum had a lawyer. The letter set out 12 allegations of serious misconduct and required her to attend a disciplinary meeting by Zoom at 3.30pm the next day, warning that a decision could be made without her if she did not attend âfor whatever reasonâ. Her psychologist wrote that such a meeting would have a significant negative impact on her recovery.","Commissioner Hunt heard the matter the next morning. She found that Mrs Robertsâ earlier email to the Commission, which put the word âsickâ in inverted commas, was âan extraordinarily rude attack on Ms Rosenblumâs integrityâ, and that the letter was not reasonable management action. Mrs Roberts came across in the hearing as aggressive, and gave no undertaking about how she would act in future. On that material the Commissioner was satisfied that Mrs Roberts had repeatedly behaved unreasonably and might keep doing so.","She made an interim order stopping the respondents from finalising the investigation or taking further disciplinary action until the bullying application was decided, and from contacting Ms Rosenblum directly. The Commissioner was careful to say she had formed no view about the earlier incidents or about Mr Roberts. The misconduct allegations against Ms Rosenblum were not tested."],takeaway:"An employer can still investigate a worker who has made a bullying complaint, but how it does so matters. If a disciplinary process is being pressed on you unreasonably while your application is under way, the Commission can be asked to pause it.",note:"This was an interim decision only. No later published decision on Ms Rosenblumâs application was found.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-workplace-bullying-disciplinary-meeting-on-hold.jpg",alt:"A woman holding a letter sits in a psychologistâs room while the psychologist writes a note, palm trees and yachts outside."}}]],["sexual-harassment",[{id:"drunk-on-the-flight-to-site",headline:"Drunk on the company-booked flight to site: her sacking stood",name:"Evelyn Josey v OS MCAP Pty Ltd",citation:"[2024] FWC 2731",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2024/2731.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"2 October 2024",outcome:"Claim dismissed",result:"employer",teaser:"A fly-in fly-out mine worker was sacked after two co-workers complained about her conduct in an airport lounge and on the flight to site. She argued the airport lounge was outside work and that she had been asleep on the plane.",story:["Evelyn Josey had worked as a fly-in fly-out production technician at the Daunia mine in Queensland since March 2019, on $130,192 a year. The Commission accepted she had been a dedicated and loyal employee. She said that after a long relationship ended in 2021 she turned to alcohol to cope, and that by mid-2023 she had an alcohol problem and was struggling with her mental health.","On 18 July 2023 she arrived at Brisbane Airport for her flight to Moranbah, to start her roster. By her own account she was extremely intoxicated, and she kept drinking in the airline lounge. Two male co-workers later complained: one about unwanted touching in the lounge, the other about unwanted touching of a sexual nature on the flight the company had booked, when she sat next to him. He said he felt trapped in his seat, stayed still and hoped it would stop. Afterwards he worried about having to sit next to her on the way to work.","The next morning she told her supervisor she was not fit to work, took about five weeks of leave for treatment, and has been sober since. After an investigation, the company found the lounge conduct was harassment and the conduct on the flight was sexual harassment, and dismissed her on 21 December 2023.","She claimed unfair dismissal. She said she had been asleep on the plane, and that the lounge was outside work hours. Commissioner Durham preferred the consistent accounts of the other witnesses: her own memory was clouded by how much she had drunk. She would not have been at the airport at all but for her rostered shift. This was not strangers on a bus but âtwo co-workers undertaking work related travelâ. Her intoxication âdoes not and cannot excuse itâ.","The Commission found a valid reason, a fair process and no unfairness, and dismissed her claim. It also commended her efforts to get sober."],takeaway:"Harassment on the way to work, in an airport lounge, on a work flight or at a work event, can still be connected with work. If it happens to you there, you can report it in the same way as anything that happens on site.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-sexual-harassment-drunk-on-the-flight-to-site.jpg",alt:"Fly-in fly-out mine workers walk from a small plane to a bus at dawn, one woman keeping her distance from the rest."}},{id:"accused-of-theft-after-complaining",headline:"She complained of harassment, then her boss accused her of theft",name:"Taylor v August and Pemberton Pty Ltd",citation:"[2023] FCA 1313",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2023/1313.html",tribunal:"Federal Court of Australia",decided:"31 October 2023",outcome:"$195,000 damages plus lost earnings",result:"employee",teaser:"Fiona Taylor loved her job at a small Sydney jeweller until the owner told her he had feelings for her, and raised it again after she said no. When she complained, his reply threatened to report her to the police.",story:["Fiona Taylor joined Grew & Co, a small Sydney fine-jewellery business, in January 2018 and became its production manager. She shared an office with the owner and sole director, Simon Grew, reported directly to him, and felt she had found her dream job. There was no human resources person: any problem had to be raised with Mr Grew.","In January 2020 he told her he had developed feelings for her. She said she did not feel the same way, and before a work trip she wrote to him to set boundaries. In June 2020, after driving her home, he raised it again; on her account, he asked whether they were âgoing to become somethingâ. The next morning she had to pull off the road, crying uncontrollably. By August she had stopped going to work.","Through her lawyers she complained of sexual harassment, then complained to the Australian Human Rights Commission. His lawyersâ letters, sent while she was still an employee on leave, demanded jewellery and other items back as company property and called her claim frivolous and vexatious. His reply to that complaint accused her of theft and said he would go to the police if the items were not returned.","Justice Katzmann found that Mr Grewâs many gifts were not sexual harassment, as a reasonable person would not have expected them to offend her. But unwanted physical contact in July 2019, the January declaration and the June conversation were. He âwas not respectful of boundariesâ, and he knew he held power over her. The accusation of theft and the threat of police were âa vindictive actâ, taken largely in retribution for her complaint. That was unlawful victimisation.","She was awarded $140,000 for the harassment, $40,000 for the victimisation and $15,000 in aggravated damages for the intimidating response, plus lost earnings, superannuation and treatment costs. She resigned in 2022 and found work with a jeweller in Queensland."],takeaway:"A declaration of love from a boss can be sexual harassment even when nothing explicit is said. An employer that hits back at a complaint with threats, demands or accusations can be liable again, separately, for victimisation.",n
1ote:"The conduct happened in 2018â2020 and the claim was brought under the Sex Discrimination Act, which still applies. Since then employers have also had a positive duty to prevent sexual harassment (Sex Discrimination Act s 47C, from 13 December 2022), and the Fair Work Act has prohibited it since 6 March 2023.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-sexual-harassment-accused-of-theft-after-complaining.jpg",alt:"A woman reads a lawyerâs letter at her kitchen table, an open jewellery box beside her."}},{id:"dean-declared-his-love",headline:"Harassment proven, yet the professor was reinstated",name:"The University of Melbourne v Dr Aleksander Owczarek",citation:"[2026] FWCFB 230",url:"https://www.fwc.gov.au/document-view/decisions/the-university-of-melbourne-v-dr-aleksander-owczarek-2026-fwcfb-230",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission (Full Bench)",decided:"4 September 2026",outcome:"Harassment upheld; reinstatement stands",result:"mixed",teaser:"A senior university manager told her boss his attention was unwelcome, but the university waited what the Full Bench called five years before sacking him. The appeal agreed it was sexual harassment, yet let his reinstatement stand.",story:["In September 2019 Dr Aleksander Owczarek was Acting Dean of the University of Melbourneâs Faculty of Science. A senior colleague, whom the decision does not name, reported directly to him. She did not want to go to a dinner he had booked, and arranged for the facultyâs HR manager to ring her partway through so she would have an excuse to leave.","At the dinner he took her hand across the table and told her he loved her. The next morning he texted her, signing off âYours alwaysâ. She took a week of sick leave and, in early October, told him she wanted only a professional relationship. He kept sending messages, a Christmas card and invitations to catch up, until in March 2021 she wrote: âI do not wish to catch up.â The HR manager then held an intervention. He apologised in writing and never contacted her again.","In 2023 he applied for a role that would put them back together. She made a formal complaint, an external investigator looked into it, and the University dismissed him in December 2023. At first instance the Commission found he had sexually harassed her, but held the dismissal unfair and reinstated him without back pay, mainly because the University had known about the dinner at the time and had dealt with it in 2021.","The University appealed. The Full Bench said the finding of sexual harassment was âneither tenuous nor doubtful, it was correctâ. His intentions were irrelevant, and the fact that she had replied politely to unwelcome messages did not undermine her complaint. The delay did not stop the harassment being a valid reason for dismissal. But it could still make the dismissal harsh: the University âcould and should have acted more decisivelyâ. The appeal was dismissed, and the Full Bench warned him not to treat the result as vindication."],takeaway:"Replying politely, or not complaining formally straight away, does not make harassment welcome. Once an employer knows, it is expected to act firmly; if you raise harassment informally, it can help to ask in writing what will be done about it.",note:"Decided by a Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission on 4 September 2026, on appeal from the first-instance decision [2024] FWC 1368. The complainant is not named in the decision.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-sexual-harassment-dean-declared-his-love.jpg",alt:"A woman in a university office types a short, firm email at her desk, sandstone buildings outside the window."}},{id:"taunted-by-a-customer-and-a-contractor",headline:"Taunted by a customer and a contractor, and both had to pay",name:"Eklom v Marshall",citation:"[2026] FedCFamC2G 772",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FedCFamC2G/2026/772.html",tribunal:"Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia",decided:"31 March 2026",outcome:"$90,000 compensation plus penalties",result:"employee",teaser:"Samuel Eklom ran a self-storage site. The men who harassed him were not his bosses or co-workers: one was a contractor, the other the siteâs biggest customer.",story:["Samuel Eklom started at a self-storage business in September 2023 as a storage consultant, and his job grew into running the whole site. Jacob Marshall was the siteâs first customer and later a cleaning and maintenance contractor. Troy Mitchell became a regular customer, in effect the siteâs biggest.","Mr Eklomâs evidence was that from late 2024 or early 2025 the two men targeted him with crude, homophobic remarks, often feeding off each other. He said he felt degraded, isolated and outnumbered. When he complained, he was not listened to; when he played a recording of what was said, he was told he had broken Queenslandâs privacy law. A doctor diagnosed anxiety, stress and a depressive disorder. He was later dismissed after taking personal leave.","He sued the two men in court under the Fair Work Act, which since March 2023 has prohibited sexually harassing a worker in connection with their work. His claim against his employer was dropped once it emerged the men had never been its employees. Neither man took part in the case, and in December 2025 the court declared that each had sexually harassed him.","Judge Vasta explained that it does not matter who the harasser is, so long as the person harassed is a worker. Mr Eklomâs sexual orientation was irrelevant. Because the men had no power over him, it lacked that aggravating feature, but it was still âa very serious example of sexual harassment at workâ. The two men were ordered to pay $90,000 compensation between them, and each was penalised $13,000, more than Mr Eklom had asked for, with the penalties paid to him. The court refused aggravated damages and costs, and awarded nothing for lost pay: losing his
1job was his employerâs doing, not theirs."],takeaway:"The protection follows the worker. Harassment by a customer, client or contractor is covered as well as harassment by a boss or co-worker, and each harasser can be ordered to pay compensation and a penalty.",note:"The Fair Work Act prohibition applies to harassment from 6 March 2023. It does not cover harassment that is part of a course of conduct that began before that date.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-sexual-harassment-taunted-by-a-customer-and-a-contractor.jpg",alt:"In a self-storage site office, a young worker holds out his phone to play a recording while his manager leans back with arms folded."}},{id:"deed-signed-away-her-claim",headline:"She settled one claim and signed away another",name:"Leach v Commonwealth of Australia",citation:"[2021] FCA 158",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2021/158.html",tribunal:"Federal Court of Australia",decided:"2 March 2021",outcome:"Claim against the Commonwealth dismissed",result:"employer",teaser:"Wendy Leach settled her unfair dismissal claim against the Commonwealth. When she later sued over sexual harassment, the deed she had signed stood in her way.",story:["From 2016 Wendy Leach worked in the electorate office of a federal senator, employed by the Commonwealth. She alleges that, up to October 2018, the senator sexually harassed her and discriminated against her because of her sex. On 29 October 2018 she was dismissed, and she lodged an unfair dismissal claim with the Fair Work Commission.","At the conciliation she raised the harassment, and was brought back, from time to time, to the question of her dismissal. The Commonwealth then made a settlement offer, telling her it would not stop a workersâ compensation claim. On 16 January 2019, with no lawyer acting for her, she signed a deed that released the Commonwealth from any claims arising out of, or related to, her employment.","She later complained of sexual harassment to the Australian Human Rights Commission and sued the senator and the Commonwealth in the Federal Court. She said she had understood the deed to settle only her unfair dismissal claim, and that it would be unfair for the Commonwealth to rely on its wide wording.","Justice Lee accepted she âdid genuinely (but mistakenly) believeâ she could still bring the claim, and that it was understandable how she came to think so. But her mistake was âentirely unilateralâ. Nothing the Commonwealthâs representatives said had suggested the harassment claim would survive, they had no reason to know of her belief, and they had dealt with her carefully and fairly. The deed was enforced, and her case against the Commonwealth was dismissed with costs.","Her claim against the former senator himself was sent to another judge. Nothing in this decision found that the harassment did or did not happen."],takeaway:"Before you sign a settlement of any work claim, read the release closely and consider getting advice. A deed meant to end one claim can also end every other claim connected with the job, including one you have not yet made.",note:"Costs were ordered against Ms Leach under the rules that applied at the time. From 2 October 2024, s 46PSA of the *Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986* (Cth) generally protects an applicant in a sex discrimination or sexual harassment case from paying the other sideâs costs if the case fails, subject to exceptions. It does not apply to court cases started before that date.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-sexual-harassment-deed-signed-away-her-claim.jpg",alt:"A woman on a park bench signs the last page of a document on a clipboard, her phone on speaker beside her."}},{id:"cafe-owner-kissed-waitress",headline:"She asked about her pay; the caf\xe9 owner kissed her",name:"Mejia v Capital City Cafe-Bar",citation:"[2026] FedCFamC2G 468",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FedCFamC2G/2026/468.html",tribunal:"Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia",decided:"26 March 2026",outcome:"$50,000 agreed compensation plus penalties",result:"employee",teaser:"Valeria Me
1jia, a 23-year-old casual waitress, tried to raise her underpayment with the caf\xe9 owner. Later that shift he hugged her from behind and kissed her.",story:["Valeria Mejia came to Australia with her husband in 2022. In May 2024, aged 23, she started as a casual waitress at a caf\xe9 in Canberra City run by Mr Kehal, the sole director of the company that owned it. She was never given pay slips, and could not make her pay match the hours she knew she had worked.","On 29 July 2024 she tried to raise her pay with him. He avoided the issue and instead told her to go shopping, saying he would pay. Later that shift, when they were briefly alone in the kitchen, he hugged her from behind at the sink, tried to make her take money from his wallet, and kissed her on the lips without her consent. She was frightened, asked the chef not to leave her alone, and never went back.","The next day he sent her message after message apologising. The court later found those apologies were driven by wanting the incident kept quiet and his wife not to find out, not by accepting responsibility. Pay slips the business later gave the Fair Work Ombudsman understated her hours and overstated her pay rate. She had been underpaid $6,079.08.","Represented by the Womenâs Legal Centre ACT, she sued under the Fair Work Act, which prohibits sexual harassment in connection with work. The company went into liquidation just before the hearing. Mr Kehal had at first denied the harassment, sparing her cross-examination only when he made full admissions on the day.","The parties agreed that he would personally pay her $50,000 compensation for hurt, distress and humiliation, and $40,000 in penalties, paid to her: $9,390 for the harassment and $30,610 for the breaches of her pay and employment rights. Judge Mansfield checked those agreed figures and approved them. He noted she was young, a migrant and of limited means, and that Mr Kehal had used his authority and the offer of money."],takeaway:"A single incident can be enough. Under the Fair Work Act the person who harassed you can be pursued personally, even if the business has collapsed, and penalties can be ordered to be paid to you.",note:"The $50,000 and $40,000 were amounts agreed between Ms Mejia and Mr Kehal; the court approved them as appropriate rather than fixing them itself. Her claim for unpaid wages against the company goes to its liquidator.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-sexual-harassment-cafe-owner-kissed-waitress.jpg",alt:"A young waitress leaves a caf\xe9 at closing time with a chef walking protectively beside her."}},{id:"two-complaints-about-different-conduct",headline:"Two complaints about different conduct can run side by side",name:"Annemarie Clarke Chesaites v Sentinel Community Services Pty Ltd",citation:"[2026] FWC 1086",url:"https://www.fwc.gov.au/document-view/decisions/application-by-ms-annmarie-clarke-chesaites-2026-fwc-1086",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"24 April 2026",outcome:"Employerâs bid to dismiss refused",result:"employee",teaser:"A disability support manager took a sexual harassment dispute to the Fair Work Commission and a discrimination complaint to the Human Rights Commission. Her former employer called it forum-shopping.",story:["Annemarie Clarke Chesaites came to Australia from the United Kingdom in October 2023 and went to work for Sentinel Community Services, an aged care and disability support provider in Taree, New South Wales. By March 2024 she was managing a supported independent living service. Her employment, from November 2023 until she was dismissed in June 2025, involved complaints in both directions.","She complained of bullying and of sexual harassment by colleagues: unwanted weekly invitations to drinks, comments about her appearance, rumours and repeated staring. The employer investigated and found her complaints unsubstantiated. Colleagues complained about her too, and the employer dismissed her for gross misconduct. The Commission has not decided any of these allegations, on either side.","In December 2025 she asked the Fair Work Commission to deal with a sexual harassment dispute about four former colleagues. She also complained to the Australian Human Rights Commission of race, sex and age discrimination. The employer asked the Commission to throw out the Fair Work application. It said the law stops a person pursuing the same conduct in both places, called this âforum-shoppingâ, and argued there was no point anyway because the Commission cannot award damages.","Deputy President Slevin disagreed. The bar in s 734B of the Fair Work Act turns on the particular conduct complained of. Her Human Rights Commission form did n
1ot tick the boxes for sexual harassment, and the conduct described in each complaint was different, so the bar did not apply. Nor was the application pointless: the Commissionâs role is to try to resolve the dispute and, if that fails, to issue a certificate that opens the way to court or, if both sides agree, to arbitration. The employerâs view that her claim lacked merit was a matter for the conference."],takeaway:"You generally cannot pursue the same conduct with both the Fair Work Commission and the Australian Human Rights Commission. Different conduct can go to each, so it matters to be clear about which incidents each complaint covers.",note:"This was a preliminary decision. The Commission did not decide whether any harassment happened; the dispute was sent on to a private conference.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-sexual-harassment-two-complaints-about-different-conduct.jpg",alt:"A woman at a country post office counter hands over two separate large envelopes."}}]],["discrimination",[{id:"nurse-sacked-after-complaining",headline:"Nurse complained about her treatment, then was sacked",name:"Han v St Basil's Homes",citation:"[2023] FCA 1010",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2023/1010.html",tribunal:"Federal Court of Australia",decided:"25 August 2023",outcome:"Over $320,000 compensation plus $60,000 penalties",result:"employee",teaser:"A registered nurse with more than nine years at an aged care home raised formal complaints about how she and residents were being treated. Weeks later she was sacked and reported to the nursing regulator.",story:["Wei Han, known at work as Casey, had been a registered nurse at St Basilâs aged care home in Lakemba, Sydney, for over nine years. She is Chinese. From mid-2019 her workload rose by about 40%, and, she said, she began complaining that she was overworked, unsupported and treated differently from a group of Filipino co-workers.","In August 2019 she called a colleague âa bitchâ in what she said was a joke that misfired, and in September she was given a first and final warning. The court later found the warning did not breach the Fair Work Act. Ms Han kept raising concerns, including formal complaints in December 2019 that a colleague was targeting her and that others had refused to help her with residents.","Instead of investigating those complaints, the court found, the general manager turned them against her. Ms Han was called to an âoutcomes meetingâ with no clue what it was about, and on 23 January 2020 she was dismissed, accused of poor clinical care and of asking an unqualified team leader to give a resident oxygen. The home also complained about her to the nursing regulator, which closed the matter with no further action.","Ms Han ran the trial herself. Under the Fair Work Actâs reverse onus (s 361), St Basilâs had to prove its reasons were innocent. Justice Rares found it could not. There was no rule stopping team leaders giving oxygen, there was no objective basis for the concerns about her care, and the general managerâs âinvestigationâ was, in his words, âa trumped up attackâ. The dismissal was found to be because of Ms Hanâs complaints and her race.","In May 2025 a second judge ordered St Basilâs to pay $175,000 for past lost earnings, $61,559.62 for future loss, $75,000 in general damages and $10,000 for future treatment, plus **penalties of $60,000 paid to Ms Han herself**."],takeaway:"If you are disciplined soon after making complaints at work, keep copies of your complaints and of every letter you receive. In a Fair Work general protections claim, the employer has to prove the real reason for what it did.",note:"Compensation and penalties were set in *Han v St Basilâs Homes (No 2)* [2025] FCA 448 (6 May 2025). Interest and costs were left to be decided separately.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-discrimination-nurse-sacked-after-complaining.jpg",alt:"A tired but determined nurse holding a folder of notes at an empty nursesâ station beside an oxygen trolley."}},{id:"job-offer-withdrawn-after-passport",headline:"Job offer withdrawn just after his passport showed he was 71",name:"Heather v Hikvision Australia Pty Ltd",citation:"[2021] FCCA 196",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCCA/2021/196.html",tribunal:"Federal Circuit Court of Australia",decided:"5 February 2021",outcome:"Claim dismissed",result:"employer",teaser:"He won the job, sent his passport as asked, and the offer was withdrawn days later. The timing looked damning, but the court found for the employer.",story:["In July 2019 Lance Heather was offered a job as a business development manager with Hikvision, a supplier of video surveillance equipment. As part of the paperwork he sent a copy of his passport. It showed he was 71. The very next day the chief executive decided to withdraw the offer, and Mr Heather was told on 5 July 2019.","Mr Heather claimed the offer was pulled because of his age, contrary to s 351 of the Fair Work Act. Hikvision accepted that refusing to employ him was adverse action against a prospective employee, and that the reverse onus applied, so it had to prove age played no part.","The chief executive said he never saw the passport and did not know Mr Heatherâs age. The HR manager admitted she noticed it but said she did not pass it on, and IT records showed the email was not forwarded. Hikvisionâs explanation was a change of plan: its mid-year review showed Victorian sales falling, so it dropped its push into large corporate and government clients and moved an existing staff member into the role.","Mr Heatherâs lawyers attacked that story hard. There was no strategy document, key witnesses were not called, and Hikvision had wrongly told the Fair Work Commission the offer was only conditional. Judge Riley called
1it âa very finely balanced caseâ.","What decided it was what Hikvision did next. Eighteen months later it had three business development managers, all working with entry and mid-level clients, and none chasing the big clients Mr Heather was hired for. If age had been the reason, the judge reasoned, it would have hired someone younger to do that job. The timing alone did not prove that one thing caused the other. The claim was dismissed."],takeaway:"If an offer is withdrawn soon after your age comes to light, the law presumes age was a reason. But an employer can rebut that with convincing evidence of a genuine change of plan, and what it does afterwards often decides the case.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-discrimination-job-offer-withdrawn-after-passport.jpg",alt:"A white-haired man in a suit on a train platform, reading his phone with sinking shoulders, a new briefcase at his feet."}},{id:"chief-accountant-train-replacement",headline:"Told to train his replacement at 68, he won more on appeal",name:"Gutierrez v MUR Shipping Australia Pty Limited",citation:"[2023] FCA 399",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2023/399.html",tribunal:"Federal Court of Australia",decided:"4 May 2023",outcome:"$232,215.56 damages plus interest",result:"employee",teaser:"A shipping companyâs chief accountant had already named his retirement date. The company wanted him on a fixed-term contract, training the person lined up to take his job. He won at trial, but the real result came on appeal.",story:["Alex Gutierrez had worked for MUR Shipping in Sydney since 2003 and was its chief accountant. He had told the company he planned to retire in September 2019, when he turned 70. In April 2018 the company hired an accountant from its Dubai office into an administrative role, expecting her to take over his job when he retired.","On 19 July 2018, after a board meeting, the managing director told Mr Gutierrez the company wanted to replace his ongoing contract with a fixed-term one and have him train her. He said that was illegal. On 1 August 2018 his lawyers wrote that he treated his employment as over.","At trial, Judge Driver found this was age discrimination under the Age Discrimination Act 2004. His own word on when he would retire was not accepted, and he was âdemeanedâ by being asked to train his replacement. But the judge held he chose to resign when there was no need to, found only a âmildâ adjustment disorder, and awarded $20,000 and an apology.","Mr Gutierrez appealed. Justice Burley found the trial judge had not properly dealt with the unchallenged evidence of a psychiatrist, who said he could not work until his condition resolved. His claim that he had been forced out still failed. But the discrimination was âplainly enough a causeâ of his inability to work, so **he could recover his lost earnings even though he had resigned**.","General damages were raised from $20,000 to $90,000, and in June 2023 the court added $142,215.56 for lost earnings up to his planned retirement, plus interest."],takeaway:"Being nudged out because of your age can be unlawful even if you are never formally sacked. If the treatment leaves you unable to work, medical evidence of that can make the difference to what you recover.",note:"The trial decision is *Gutierrez v MUR Shipping Australia Pty Limited* [2021] FedCFamC2G 56 (1 December 2021). Economic loss was fixed in *Gutierrez v MUR Shipping Australia Pty Limited (No 2)* [2023] FCA 567 (1 June 2023).",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-discrimination-chief-accountant-train-replacement.jpg",alt:"A grey-haired accountant being shadowed by a younger colleague, gazing out at a departing container ship."}},{id:"sacked-for-caring-for-sick-child",headline:"Sacked the day she stayed home with a sick child",name:"Tahi v Oxican Pty Ltd",citation:"[2018] FCCA 3722",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCCA/2018/3722.html",tribunal:"Federal Circuit Court of Australia",decided:"13 December 2018",outcome:"$4,223.75 compensation plus $10,800 penalty",result:"employee",teaser:"A trainee real estate agent with two toddlers was pushed onto two weeksâ unpaid leave when her son had a fever, then dismissed when she called in again with a sick child. The owner later agreed that, had she come in that day, she would not have been sacked.",story:["Kerry Tahi started as a trainee salesperson at QMT Realty in south-east Queensland on 30 May 2016. Her two children were then 11 months and 21 months old. Her hours were soon changed, and in late July they were cut to 15 a week.","On 4 August 2016 she left early to collect her son, who had a fever. When she rang the next day, the owner told her, or suggested, depending on whose account is believed, to take two weeks off, unpaid. The court accepted that the children were well by the following Monday. The court found the leave was the ownerâs idea and that Ms Tahi had no real say.","On 1 September 2016 she rang to say one of her children was ill and she could not come in. She was dismissed that day. Under cross-examination the owner agreed that if Ms Tahi had come to work that day, there would have been no need to dismiss her.","Ms Tahi represented herself, and she did not win on every point. Judge Jarrett found she sometimes claimed more hours than she worked, and that the July cut to her hours was made for other reasons, including doubts about her timesheets and a downturn in the business, not because of her children. But as a casual she still had a right to unpaid carerâs leave, and her children really were sick each time. The forced unpaid leave and the dismissal were both found to be **because of her family responsibilities**, in breach of s 351 of the Fair Work Act.","She was awarded $4,223.75 for lost wages but nothing for hurt feelings. The employer was then ordered to pay a $10,800 penalty to her, and its bid to make her pay its legal costs was dismissed."],takeaway:"Even casual employees can take unpaid carerâs leave to look after a sick child. Being forced onto unpaid leave, or dismissed, because you have caring responsibilities can breach the Fair Work Act.",note:"The penalty was set in *Tahi v Oxican Pty Ltd (No.2)* [2018] FCCA 3904 (21 December 2018). The employerâs costs application was dismissed in *Tahi v Oxican Pty Ltd (No.3)* [2019] FCCA 426 (1 March 2019). The compensation figure was corrected from $5,040.95 to $4,223.75 after judgment.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-discrimination-sacked-for-caring-for-sick-child.jpg",alt:"A young mother checking a feverish toddlerâs temperature while on the phone, her work blazer hanging on the door."}},{id:"maternity-leave-turned-resignation",headline:"She went off to have her baby and was recorded as resigned",name:"Silcock v Burger Urge Pty Ltd",citation:"[2026] FedCFamC2G 438",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FedCFamC2G/2026/438.html",tribunal:"Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia",decided:"23 March 2026",outcome:"Claim dismissed",result:"employer",teaser:"A pregnant burger-store worker left with a card, vouchers and a âsee you in 6 monthsâ. Months later she found she had been recorded as resigned. The court agreed she had been dismissed, but not because of her pregnancy.",story:["Alyssa Silcock was five months pregnant when she started as a part-time crew member at Burger Urgeâs Forster store in May 2024. She told her managers she would take about six months off after the birth and come back. Before she left, the team gave her a card wishing her âEnjoy your time offâ, and the store manager texted âIâll see you in 6 months hopefullyâ. Her last shift was on 27 August 2024.","In November her staff discount and staff login stopped working. In December the companyâs HR told her it had âregistered your resignationâ and sent her an offboarding checklist. She had never resigned, and she had never seen the form. The store manager admitted making the mark next to Ms Silcockâs name, and the judge did n
1ot accept her explanation for it.","Judge Doust found Ms Silcock had not resigned, so processing her as a resignation was a dismissal. Under s 351 of the Fair Work Act the employer then had to prove that her pregnancy and family responsibilities were not reasons for it.","It did. The store manager had been in the job only a few weeks, got âunhelpful adviceâ from above, and was found to be âout of her depthâ. Whether it was a âmisunderstandingâ or expedience, she was not acting because of the pregnancy, and she had shown no animus. The judge said the employerâs handling âleft a great deal to be desiredâ and that Ms Silcockâs sense of betrayal was âentirely justifiedâ.","Her other claims failed too. With under 12 monthsâ service she had no legal right to unpaid parental leave, so taking time off was not a protected âworkplace rightâ. The claim was dismissed."],takeaway:"Unpaid parental leave is a legal right only after 12 monthsâ service. If you have less, get any leave arrangement confirmed in writing. In a discrimination claim the court asks why the employer acted, not only whether it acted badly.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-discrimination-maternity-leave-turned-resignation.jpg",alt:"A young mother with a baby in a sling showing her phone to a puzzled cashier at a burger counter."}},{id:"bank-ordered-to-allow-remote-work",headline:"Bank ordered to let a mother keep working from home",name:"Karlene Chandler v Westpac Banking Corporation",citation:"[2025] FWC 3115",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2025/3115.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"20 October 2025",outcome:"Flexible work request granted by order",result:"employee",teaser:"A long-serving Westpac employee asked to keep working from home so she could do school runs for her two young children. The bank said no, and the Fair Work Commission ordered it to say yes.",story:["Karlene Chandler has worked for Westpac since 2002, part-time in its mortgage operations team. For years she had worked mostly from home. Then Westpacâs hybrid policy required her to attend a corporate office two days a week, about two hoursâ travel from her childrenâs school. She does the drop-offs and pick-ups for her two six-year-olds.","On 17 January 2025 she made a formal flexible-work request under s 65 of the Fair Work Act to work from home. Westpac missed the 21-day deadline to reply, refused without reasons, and when pressed, a senior manager emailed that âworking from home is no substitution for childcareâ. She offered to work two days a week at the local Bowral branch instead. Westpac said no.","This is not a discrimination claim. It is the flexible-work right in the National Employment Standards, and since 2023 the Fair Work Commission can arbitrate a refusal. Deputy President Roberts found Westpac had not followed the required steps. It refused before discussing the request, did not genuinely try to reach agreement, and did not consider the consequences for her.","Nor did it have reasonable business grounds. Team huddles and training already ran online, her work âcan be performed completely remotelyâ, and she and her team had performed âat a very high levelâ. Westpac argued that her home and school were her own choices and that her partner could help more. The Commission accepted the first point in part but found her partnerâs work hours made that unrealistic, and that refusing would be âseriously prejudicialâ to her family.","Westpacâs argument that its enterprise agreement stopped such an order was rejected. The Commission ordered Westpac to grant her request."],takeaway:"If your employer refuses a flexible-work request, it must discuss it with you, genuinely try to agree, consider the impact on you and show reasonable business grounds. A refusal can now be taken to the Fair Work Commission.",note:"The Commission can arbitrate refused requests made on or after 6 June 2023, under changes made by the Secure Jobs, Better Pay Act 2022. The order itself was published separately from the decision.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-discrimination-bank-ordered-to-allow-remote-work.jpg",alt:"A mother waving as two young children climb out of her car at a school drop-off zone at dawn, a laptop bag on the seat."}},{id:"mechanic-kept-out-after-injury",headline:"Doctors cleared him to work, but the workshop kept him out",name:"Panazzolo v Don's Mechanical and Diesel Service Pty Ltd",citation:"[2023] FedCFamC2G 665",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FedCFamC2G/2023/665.html",tribunal:"Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia",decided:"2 August 2023",outcome:"$44,000 damages including interest",result:"employee",teaser:"A diesel mechanic broke his forearm outside work. His doctors said he could return, but his small employer insisted he be 100% fit first, and the court found that was disability discrimination.",story:["Mark Panazzolo, a qualified heavy vehicle diesel mechanic, joined Donâs Auto, a small family-run workshop in Adelaide, in July 2019. In October 2020 he was injured outside work and broke his left forearm, which needed surgery. By February 2021 a hospital orthopaedic doctor wrote that he could return to work at full capacity.","The owners wanted a full clearance. A physiotherapist they engaged found he could return âin a restricted mannerâ, avoiding heavy sustained gripping and carrying no more than 22.7 kg occasionally, with physio and a review in six to eight weeks. The workshop read that as a no, said he must pay for the physio himself, and its trade association wrote that because the injury was not work-related there was no obligation to provide suitable duties. With no income he could not afford the physio. In August 2021 he resigned.","He sued under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, which requires employers to make reasonable adjustments for a disability unless doing so w
1ould cause unjustifiable hardship. Judge Brown held the Act applied even though the injury had nothing to do with work. He found the workshop had put the burden on Mr Panazzolo âto establish, to its satisfaction, that he was no longer disabledâ, and he doubted the ownerâs claim, raised for the first time at the hearing, that he had offered to pay for physio.","Only fairly modest adjustments were needed, and even for a small âmum and dadâ business they were not an unjustifiable hardship. The judge described the workshopâs approach as **âclumsy rather than malicious; ill-informed rather than calculatedâ**.","He awarded $10,000 for hurt and distress, $30,000 for lost wages and $4,000 interest. Lost wages were limited because his later unemployment was not the workshopâs fault."],takeaway:"An injury or illness that has nothing to do with work can still be a disability. If you can return with some limits, your employer generally has to consider reasonable adjustments rather than insist you are 100% fit.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-discrimination-mechanic-kept-out-after-injury.jpg",alt:"A mechanic with a scarred forearm holding an envelope outside a half-closed workshop roller door."}},{id:"return-from-parental-leave-refused",headline:"Her return from parental leave was cancelled at the last minute",name:"Fair Work Ombudsman v Austrend International Pty Ltd (No 2)",citation:"[2020] FCA 1193",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2020/1193.html",tribunal:"Federal Court of Australia",decided:"20 August 2020",outcome:"$2,000 for hurt; $18,300 penalties to the Commonwealth",result:"employee",teaser:"A sales executive had a return-to-work date agreed in writing. When she told her employer she was pregnant again, she was told her unpaid leave had been âextendedâ until her second baby arrived.",story:["Lindsey Aragon worked as a sales executive for Austrend, a gourmet food distributor, from 2013. She went on parental leave in July 2015. When she asked to come back two days a week, she was told it was full-time or nothing. So she nominated 4 April 2016 to return full-time, and the company replied that she was âmost welcome to join dutyâ.","In March 2016 she told the company she was pregnant again and confirmed she was coming back. Her follow-up emails went largely unanswered until 1 April 2016, when the director wrote that her unpaid leave had been extended until she delivered her second baby. She replied that she had never asked for that. That evening a second email denied any agreement, insisted on a medical certificate, referred to âpoor performanceâ and told her not to contact staff before 12 April.","The Fair Work Ombudsman took the company to court. Austrend admitted refusing to let her return because of her sex and pregnancy, in breach of s 351 of the Fair Work Act, and its director admitted being involved. Justice Banks-Smith noted the company admitted the medical certificate demand was unlawful. It also emerged that the evening email had been drafted by the directorâs friend overseas and sent without the director reading it.","By July 2016 Ms Aragon had been paid her wages from 4 April and had agreed to resign, so the court awarded compensation only for hurt and distress: $2,000. It found she was left in the dark and then met with âunnecessarily harsh, threatening and combative languageâ. Penalties were $15,500 for the company and $2,800 for the director, paid to the Commonwealth, and the company had to train its managers.","As the judge put it: âMaking matters so difficult for a person seeking to return to work from parental leave simply should not happen in this day and age.â"],takeaway:"You have a right to return to your job after unpaid parental leave. An employer cannot quietly âextendâ your leave because you are pregnant again, and the Fair Work Ombudsman can take an employer to court over it.",note:"The contravention was admitted, so the court decided only the penalties and orders. For requests made on or after 6 June 2023, a refused flexible-work request, such as a request to return part-time after parental leave, can be taken to the Fair Work Commission for arbitration. Maximum penalties have also risen since 2016.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-discrimination-return-from-parental-leave-refused.jpg",alt:"A woman holding a toddler at the locked glass door of a food warehouse, lunch bag in hand, looking bewildered."}}]],["employment-contracts",[{id:"kippax-street-sales-assistant",headline:"A $28,860-a-year sales assistant, sued over her phone contacts",name:"Luvalot Clothing Pty Ltd v Dong",citation:"[2022] FCA 1411",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2022/1411.html",tribunal:"Federal Court of Australia",decided:"28 November 2022",outcome:"Claim dismissed with costs",result:"employee",teaser:"A fashion wholesaler sued its former sales assistant, saying she had used its confidential customer list to win business for a rival on the same Sydney street. The Federal Court dismissed every claim.",story:["Ms Dong started as a full-time sales assistant at Luvalot Clothing's showroom on Kippax Street in Surry Hills on 31 July 2012, on a salary of $28,860 a year. She had no work phone, so she used her own mobile and WeChat to send buyers photos of new stock. In January 2017, while on unpaid maternity leave, she resigned. In June 2017 she started as sales manager at Sasha, another wholesaler on the same street.","When she resigned, Luvalot's founder messaged her that she had been 'stabbed in the back' and that it was 'easy to come to find you'. The court later found those messages were meant to threaten her with legal action. Luvalot then sued, saying she had misused its confidential customer list and broken a clause stopping her from dealing with its customers after she left.","Justice Anderson rejected the confidentiality claim. Luvalot could not say precisely what its 'Customer Details List' was. Its customer records sat on office computers with no password that any staff member could open, and Luvalot published some customers' names on its own website. On Kippax Street, the court found, buyers were well known to the wholesalers along the street and their numbers could be found with a basic Google search. The customers Ms Dong remembered from more than four and a half years of serving them were part of her own general skill and knowledge.","The restraint failed too. Barring a junior employee on $28,860 from working in wholesale clothing for 12 months, or even six, went well beyond protecting Luvalot's customer relationships, the court held, and the clause was invali
1d. The judge added that a restraint of no more than two months would have been acceptable. Luvalot's claim was dismissed and it was ordered to pay Ms Dong's costs."],takeaway:"A contract that calls customer lists confidential does not turn every name and number into a secret. Where customers are well known in the trade and you simply remember them, a court may treat that as your own know-how, and a long restraint on a junior worker is hard for an employer to justify.",note:"Ms Dong worked in New South Wales, so the Restraints of Trade Act 1976 (NSW) applied. The judge's view that two months would have been acceptable was a passing remark, not an order: Ms Dong had not applied to have the clause cut down. She first emailed customers for Sasha about four months after her employment with Luvalot ended.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-employment-contracts-kippax-street-sales-assistant.jpg",alt:"A young woman checks her phone as she walks along a street of wholesale clothing showrooms, watched by a shop owner from a doorway."}},{id:"secret-group-rival-business",headline:"A 17-year insider, a 'Secret Group' chat and a rival business",name:"Verix Pty Ltd v Williams",citation:"[2021] FCA 748",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2021/748.html",tribunal:"Federal Court of Australia",decided:"2 July 2021",outcome:"Found liable for breaching his duties",result:"employer",teaser:"While still on the payroll, a business development manager helped set up a competing business and passed it his employer'
1s prices and tender figures. The Federal Court found him liable for breaching his contract, his duties as an employee and copyright.",story:["Peter Williams worked for PGA Laminating, a family-run Victorian maker of plastic film for food packaging, from June 2000 until 17 November 2017. He was the owner's brother-in-law, and as business development manager he looked after PGA's customer accounts. From July 2017, while still employed, he began working with a PGA sales contractor and a supplier's employee to set up a competing business.","In an email headed 'General starting', sent from his personal Gmail account, Mr Williams told the others they had '2 clients that we believe can and will move quickly'. One was Don Smallgoods, which provided about half of PGA's business. While he worked on PGA's tender to Don Smallgoods, he sent the contractor PGA's prices and volumes, and the new venture lodged a tender designed to undercut PGA. The three also kept a WhatsApp group called 'Secret Group'.","Two days before he resigned, Mr Williams sent another customer, Northside, a letter putting PGA's prices up; the court found he had suggested the rise to make PGA less competitive, and Northside later took its business elsewhere. The day before he resigned, he removed a large volume of files from around his desk after hours; he said they were mostly personal, and the court could not say what was taken. A laptop he used for PGA work, which he had reported stolen, came back to PGA with all its files deleted.","Justice Beach found that Mr Williams breached his employment contract, his duties under ss 182 and 183 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), his duty of confidence and his fiduciary duties, and infringed PGA's copyright. His claim to part-own the business did not help: even an owner could not take the company's information for himself. The court was not satisfied that his breaches of fiduciary duty were fraudulent and dishonest. The contractor and his company were liable as accessories to the statutory and confidence breaches."],takeaway:"You do not need a restraint clause to be in trouble. While you are still employed you owe your employer loyalty, and using its prices, tenders or customers to build a competing business before you leave can make you liable, along with anyone who knowingly helps.",note:"This judgment decided liability only; damages and the final orders were left for a later stage.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-employment-contracts-secret-group-rival-business.jpg",alt:"A man crouches behind pallets of packaging film in a factory, secretly typing on his phone."}},{id:"cfo-to-cotton-on",headline:"A CFO's move to Cotton On, and a restraint naming 50 rivals",name:"Just Group Ltd v Peck",citation:"[2016] VSCA 334",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/vic/VSCA/2016/334.html",tribunal:"Supreme Court of Victoria, Court of Appeal",decided:"20 December 2016",outcome:"Restraint not enforced",result:"employee",teaser:"Just Group's chief financial officer left after five months for a similar job at Cotton On. Her contract barred her from working for 50 named retailers for up to two years. Two courts refused to enforce it.",story:["Nicole Peck became chief financial officer of Just Group, the retailer behind brands such as Smiggle and Peter Alexander, on 6 January 2016. Her package included a first-year salary of $450,000 and a $50,000 sign-on fee. On 1 May 2016 she accepted a CFO-level role at Cotton On, and the next day gave one month's notice. Her employment ended on 3 June 2016.","Her contract said that for 24 months (or, if a court disagreed, 18 or 12) she must not take part in any activity similar to the parts of Just Group's business she had worked in, or work for any of 50 listed brands and groups, Cotton On among them. Just Group sued to hold her to it. The trial judge refused, finding among other things that a restraint of at least a year sat oddly with a probation period in which she could have been let go on one month's notice. Just Group appealed.","The Court of Appeal agreed with the trial judge. An employer can protect its confidential information, but it has no legitimate interest in protecting itself from competition as such. The first part of the clause would have kept her out of any competing activity she had been involved in, whether or not she held its secrets, and the court refused to rewrite it to save it. As for the list, Just Group never explained how it chose the 50 names.","Nor would the court strike out every name except Cotton On. The list was one restraint, not 50 separate promises, and trimming it to fit what she had actually done would mean making a new contract for the parties. Quoting Justice Heydon's writing outside court, the judges said courts are 'referees, not players'. Leave to appeal was granted and the appeal dismissed."],takeaway:"A long list of banned employers and a ladder of fallback periods does not make a restraint safe. The employer has to prove that each part protects something real, such as confidential information, and a court applying the common law will not redraft an over-wide clause to rescue it.",note:"The decision upheld *Just Group Ltd v Peck* [2016] VSC 614. It applies the common law: a court may strike out a separate promise in a restraint, as if with a blue pen, but it cannot rewrite one to make it reasonable. New South Wales has a statute that lets a court read a restraint down; Victoria has no equivalent.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-employment-contracts-cfo-to-cotton-on.jpg",alt:"A woman packs her briefcase in a boardroom in front of a pinboard of dozens of shopfront sketches joined by one string."}},{id:"advisers-text-promise-clients",headline:"Two advisers, a friendly text and a $270,593.60 judgment",name:"Monarch Advisory Group Pty Ltd v Puxty (No 4)",citation:"[2025] FCA 534",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2025/534.html",tribunal:"Federal Court of Australia",decided:"23 May 2025",outcome:"Ordered to pay $270,593.60 plus interest",result:"employer",teaser:"Two financial planners left a small advisory firm and kept looking after clients they had served there. One relied on a text from the firm's director saying his clients could go back to him. The court held the restraint valid and gave the firm judgment for $270,593.60 plus interest.",story:["Brett Puxty and Francis Coggan joined Monarch Advisory Group to run a new Newcastle office for the financial planning firm, whose director worked from Sydney. Mr Puxty brought clients from earlier jobs. Before he signed, the director texted him that 'if this all falls over you can transfer them back'. On 7 December 2018 both men signed contracts barring them, without Monarch's consent, from soliciting or accepting work from Monarch's clients after they left: for 12 months if they had worked there between one and two years.","Their employment ended on 31 January 2020, and by March they were trading through their own company, Odyssey. Clients wrote to Monarch asking for the two men to keep looking after them, and the men took them on. Mr Puxty said Monarch had consented
1in advance to him taking his clients if its partnership with a law firm's parent company fell through, as it had.","Justice Markovic disagreed. Read with the whole text exchange, 'if this falls over' referred to the men's proposed employment, not to his leaving later. His signed contract contained no carve-out for his clients. The 12-month restraint was reasonable because insurance policies renew every year, giving Monarch one cycle to cement its own connection with the clients. It did not matter that the men had stayed only just over a year, because reasonableness is judged when the contract is signed. Nor did it matter who called whom: the clause also banned accepting work.","Monarch was awarded $106,145.60 for lost profits and $194,448 for the lower price it got when it sold its business. After setting off $30,000 the court ordered Monarch to pay Mr Puxty, judgment was $270,593.60 plus $74,000 interest. The Full Court dismissed the men's appeal in June 2026."],takeaway:"If you are promised that you can take your clients with you, make sure that promise is written into the contract you sign. A friendly message sent during negotiations may not be read as the employer's consent, and the signed clause is what a court will enforce.",note:"Upheld on appeal in *Puxty v Monarch Advisory Group Pty Ltd (in liquidation)* [2026] FCAFC 80 (9 June 2026); Monarch had gone into liquidation after the trial judgment. The contracts were treated as governed by the Restraints of Trade Act 1976 (NSW).",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-employment-contracts-advisers-text-promise-clients.jpg",alt:"A woman frowns at a text thread on her phone in a cafe while two men put up a sign on a new office across the street."}},{id:"garden-leave-restraint-halved",headline:"Sent home on garden leave, then a 12-month ban cut in half",name:"Grace Worldwide (Australia) Pty Ltd v Alves",citation:"[2017] NSWSC 1296",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/nsw/NSWSC/2017/1296.html",tribunal:"Supreme Court of New South Wales",decided:"26 September 2017",outcome:"Restraint cut from 12 months to six",result:"mixed",teaser:"A removals company's general manager resigned to become chief executive of its main rival. The court held he could be kept at home on full pay through his notice period, and that his restraint applied, but for six months rather than 12.",story:["Steve Alves joined Grace, a removals and storage business with 55 storage facilities across Australia and New Zealand, in January 2010. By 2017 he was its General Manager Operations, on a base salary of $205,000. On 10 July 2017 he signed on as chief executive of Kent, which the court accepted was Grace's 'direct and major competitor', and resigned the same day. His contract required three months' notice and barred him from working for a competitor for 12 months.","Grace put him on 'garden leave' for the three months: full pay, but no office, no customers and no company phone. It also accused him of copying confidential files after he resigned, an allegation it withdrew during the hearing when its own computer evidence could not support it. Mr Alves argued that Grace's conduct had ended the contract and freed him from the restraint.","Justice Slattery disagreed. Grace was entitled to send him on garden leave: his job was not unique, and working out his notice would not have earned him a bonus anyway. Asking for the phone back, and making then dropping the allegations, did not end the contract either. The judge also described Mr Alves as 'an impressive witness'.","But 12 months was more than Grace needed. Mr Alves knew its price points and rebates, which the judge thought would lose their significance after about six months, and he was the public face of Grace to customers in his area. Using the Restraints of Trade Act 1976 (NSW), the court read all the restraints down to six months, ending on 9 January 2018. That ran from his notice, so it overlapped his paid garden leave. As the judge put it, Grace upheld its restraint, and Mr Alves had it cut by about half."],takeaway:"If you resign to join a competitor, your employer may be able to keep you at home on full pay for your notice period. In New South Wales a court can also cut an over-long restraint down rather than strike it out, so a shorter version may still bind you.",note:"The judge said the 12-month restraints would have been void at common law; they survived only because the Restraints of Trade Act 1976 (NSW) let the court read them down to six months. Other states have no equivalent statute.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-employment-contracts-garden-leave-restraint-halved.jpg",alt:"A man in a suit prunes roses in his back garden while a removals truck passes beyond the fence."}},{id:"solar-sales-lead-keeps-job",headline:"For now, a solar sales lead keeps his job with a rival",name:"One Stop Warehouse Pty Ltd v Reed",citation:"[2023] WASC 177",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/wa/WASC/2023/177.html",tribunal:"Supreme Court of Western Australia",decided:"19 May 2023",outcome:"Interim injunction refused",result:"employee",teaser:"A solar wholesaler asked the court to stop its former head of WA sales working for a competitor. In an interim decision, the court refused, pointing to the company's delay, the hardship he would face and the weakness of a long ban.",story:["Robert Reed came to Australia from South Africa in 2018, with sales experience in the spice industry and no local work history. One Stop Warehouse, a solar panel wholesaler, hired him in July 2018 and promoted him twice; by January 2022 he was responsible for all of its sales in Western Australia. His 2020 contract paid a $50,000 base salary plus bonuses, and restrained him from competing with OSW or approaching its clients after he left.","He resigned in January 2023, turned down offers of more pay to stay, and started at rival Go Solar on about 2 March 2023. A new contract OSW had sent him came back signed, but with 'N/A' written beside its restraint clauses, changes he later apologised to OSW's HR manager for. For this hearing both sides accepted that the 2020 contract applied. OSW's lawyers wrote to him on 2 March and kept negotiating, but it did not apply for an injunction until 11 May.","Justice Seaward made only an interim decision and did not decide the case finally. OSW was entitled to some protection of its client connections, the judge said, but its case for a 12-month or six-month ban was weaker. Although OSW had not been idle, Mr Reed had been at Go Solar for almost two and a half months, OSW's prices changed monthly, and any information he had was losing value. He was not paid like a top executive, had limited ability to negotiate the clauses, and might struggle to find other work in Western Australia if barred from the solar industry.","The court refused the injunction and sent the case to a quicker trial, after mediation. It relied partly on a written undertaking Mr Reed gave the court not to misuse OSW's confidential information and not to approach its staff or several named high-value clients. That was not the end of the dispute: OSW's claim for damages went on."],takeaway:"An employer that waits weeks to go to court may find a judge unwilling to stop you working, especially where a long ban would cause real hardship. But a refused interim order is not a win on the restraint: the employer can still press a claim for damages.",note:"This was an interim decision; the court did not decide whether the restraints were valid. A later ruling, *One Stop Warehouse Pty Ltd v Reed [No 2]* [2023] WASC 422 (6 November 2023), shows OSW's damages claim was still running. No final judgment was found.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-employment-contracts-solar-sales-lead-keeps-job.jpg",alt:"A man with van keys stands at the loading dock of a solar panel warehouse, looking back at the office."}},{id:"cruise-clients-followed-him",headline:"He told his cruise clients he had moved. A court said stop, for now",name:"Kensett v Silver
1sea Cruises Australia Pty Ltd",citation:"[2026] FedCFamC2G 572",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FedCFamC2G/2026/572.html",tribunal:"Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2)",decided:"10 April 2026",outcome:"Barred from soliciting old clients until 7 August 2026 (interim)",result:"employer",teaser:"A luxury-cruise sales consultant moved to a travel agency and kept booking cruises for clients he had served. In an interim decision, the court ordered him to stop soliciting them until his 12-month restraint ran out, and to stop using their contact details until further order.",story:["Matthew Kensett sold Silversea cruises directly to customers as a private cruise consultant from December 2016, on a base salary of $61,069 under his latest contract, plus commission. That contract, signed in December 2024, barred him for 12 months after leaving from contacting clients with a view to them moving their business, and from using confidential client information. His employment ended on 7 August 2025. In about October 2025 he joined Savenio, a travel agency that also sells Silversea cruises and is paid commission by Silversea for doing so.","Mr Kensett had brought his own case against Silversea, claiming it dismissed him for exercising a workplace right. Silversea answered with a cross-claim that he had misused its confidential client information and solicited its clients. He accepted that he had contacted a fair number of them to say he had moved and could help them, and over 30 bookings were made through him, but he said none of this breached his contract.","Judge Zipser made interim orders and did not decide the case finally. At this stage, the judge said, Silversea had a comparatively strong case. Client contact details were arguably confidential under his contract even if he remembered them, and telling clients he was 'available to assist them' looked like soliciting. On Silversea's evidence, each cruise booked through an agency instead of its own consultants cost it more. Mr Kensett could keep working at Savenio; he just could not chase those clients.","He was restrained until 7 August 2026 from soliciting clients he had dealt with in his last year, but allowed to keep servicing bookings already made. A month later the court added more clients to that exception, and warned that taking a booking from a client who contacted him first might still breach the orders. It refused Silversea's bid for its costs: without a lawyer, he had not acted unreasonably in standing his ground."],takeaway:"A message to former clients saying you have moved and are happy to help can itself be soliciting. If your contract has a non-solicitation clause, it is worth getting advice before contacting anyone, and taking care even when clients reach out to you first.",note:"These were interim orders; the court had not decided the case finally. The ban on soliciting clients ended on 7 August 2026; the order against using Silversea's confidential information ran until further order. Mr Kensett's own claims, including that he was dismissed for exercising a workplace right, had not been decided. The variation and costs ruling is *Kensett v Silversea Cruises Australia Pty Ltd (No 2)* [2026] FedCFamC2G 790 (8 May 2026).",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-employment-contracts-cruise-clients-followed-him.jpg",alt:"A travel agent hesitates over a ringing phone beside a model cruise ship and a wall of cruise brochures."}},{id:"recruiters-keep-jobs-not-clients",headline:"For now, three recruiters keep their jobs but must not chase clients",name:"Talent Konnects Pty Ltd v Marvelli",citation:"[2022] WASC 128",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/wa/WASC/2022/128.html",tribunal:"Supreme Court of Western Australia",decided:"25 March 2022",outcome:"Non-compete refused; client ban granted (interim)",result:"mixed",teaser:"A recruitment agency tried to stop three former account managers working for a rival. In an interim decision, the court refused that, but ordered them not to approach its three key clients or its staff, or disclose its confidential information.",story:["Talent Konnects supplies workers such as chefs, utility workers and security guards to hospital
1ity and mining clients in Western Australia. Its largest client, Compass Group, brought in about 80% of its revenue. Account managers Ms Marvelli, Ms Glas and Ms Randall, the agency said, looked after its biggest accounts. In early 2022 all three resigned and went to Collar Group, a competitor run by a former colleague of the agency's founder. Their contracts barred them, for six months, from working for any competing business and from approaching the agency's clients and staff.","The agency said the women had its rates and candidate details and were its only contacts with its three key clients. The women said they had dealt with some of the same clients in earlier jobs, were not using the agency's information, and would each lose tens of thousands of dollars in wages and commission if barred from working. There was no direct evidence that any of them had misused information or approached clients.","Justice Tottle split the clauses. The agency was entitled to some protection of its goodwill, but a six-month ban on working for any competitor was arguably too long, and its case on that point was limited. Stopping the women working at Collar Group would in practice decide the whole case, and could not stop Collar Group competing for the same clients anyway. The narrower promises not to chase clients and staff were different: there the agency's case was strong, and the women said they had no intention of breaking them.","The court made interim orders only, not a final decision. The women could keep working at Collar Group, but until July or August 2022 they must not solicit Compass Group, Australian Camp Services or Cater Care, entice away the agency's staff, or disclose its confidential information. The judge noted that their objection would have carried more weight had they offered undertakings early."],takeaway:"A restraint clause is often several promises in one. A court may refuse to stop you working for a competitor yet still hold you to a narrower promise not to chase your old clients or colleagues, so read each part separately and take the narrow ones seriously.",note:"This was an interim decision; the court did not decide the case finally. The orders ran only until 13 July, 15 August and 18 August 2022, depending on the employee.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-employment-contracts-recruiters-keep-jobs-not-clients.jpg",alt:"Three women pause in an office doorway beside a map of Western Australia pinned with mining camps, watched by the founder at her desk."}}]],["contract-disputes",[{id:"noise-complaint-sham-hearing",headline:"A hotel noise complaint, a 'sham' hearing and $1.44 million",name:"Elisha v Vision Australia Limited",citation:"[2024] HCA 50",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/2024/50.html",tribunal:"High Court of Australia",decided:"11 December 2024",outcome:"$1,442,404.50 damages restored",result:"employee",teaser:"Adam Elisha was sacked over a hotel noise complaint after a disciplinary process the trial judge called a sham. The High Court held that his employer'
1s own disciplinary policy was part of his contract, and that breaking it could cost damages for psychiatric injury.",story:["Adam Elisha had worked for Vision Australia since 2006 as an adaptive technology consultant, setting up technology for people with vision impairment. In March 2015, staying at a country hotel for work, he rang reception at around 12.30am to complain about noise outside his room. The hotel's proprietor later alleged he had been aggressive and intimidating.","Vision Australia stood him down and gave him a letter setting out the hotel allegations, which he denied at a disciplinary meeting. But the managers deciding his fate had also been told by his own manager, with whom his relationship was strained, that he had a history of aggression. That was never put to him. He was dismissed for serious misconduct, without notice pay, and was later diagnosed with a major depressive disorder. He settled an unfair dismissal claim for $27,248.68, the most the law allowed.","He then sued for breach of contract. The trial judge found he had not been aggressive at the hotel, that the claimed history of aggression 'lacked any proper foundation', and that the process was 'nothing short of a sham and a disgrace'. He awarded $1,442,404.50. The Victorian Court of Appeal set that aside, holding that damages for psychiatric injury were not available and were too remote.","The High Court restored the award, six judges to one. His contract said his conditions would be in accordance with Vision Australia's policies and procedures, so the disciplinary policy, which promised a written outline of the allegations before any meeting, bound the employer. The old English case of *Addis v Gramophone Co Ltd* did not bar damages for psychiatric injury, and a serious psychiatric injury from a breach like this was a serious possibility the parties should have contemplated."],takeaway:"If your contract says you must follow your employer's policies, its disciplinary policy may bind your employer too. A dismissal that ignores the promised process can be a breach of contract, not only an unfair dismissal.",note:"Decided six to one, with Steward J dissenting. This is now the leading case: damages for psychiatric injury caused by a breach of an employment contract in the course of a dismissal can be recovered, subject to the usual rules on remoteness.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-contract-disputes-noise-complaint-sham-hearing.jpg",alt:"A tired man sits on a hotel bed late at night, phone to his ear, covering his other ear against noise from outside."}},{id:"triple-zero-operator-sent-home",headline:"After 30 years at Telstra, sent home over a hearing test",name:"Martin v Telstra Corporation Ltd (No 2)",citation:"[2024] FedCFamC2G 1174",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FedCFamC2G/2024/1174.html",tribunal:"Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia",decided:"8 November 2024",outcome:"$45,933.92, including interest",result:"mixed",teaser:"After a hearing test, Telstra told a long-serving emergency call operator to stay away until medically cleared, then stopped paying her. The court held that suspending her without pay broke her contract, but most of her other claims failed and the damages were modest.",story:["Valerie Martin joined Telstra in 1989 and from around 2000 answered Triple Zero calls. Since 2012 Telstra had known she had mild to moderate high-frequency hearing loss, and she worked with a headset covering both ears. From late 2017 Telstra considered her performance unsatisfactory. It put her on four performance plans and gave her two written warnings over slow answering and mishandled calls, including an ambulance call connected to the wrong suburb. The court also found she had altered the time on a call ticket.","In November 2019 an audiologist reported good speech discrimination, but Telstra's occupational doctor then reported that she was unsuitable for Triple Zero work. On 7 November 2019 her manager told her not to come back until she was medically cleared. Telstra paid her discretionary leave for a time, then nothing from 14 February 2020, the day she started her
1case. It later back-paid her base salary for those months, without admission. In May 2020 an ear specialist found her fit to return, but she did not go back. Her doctor certified her unfit for work, and she resigned in May 2021.","Her claims under the enterprise agreement, the Fair Work Act's pay rules and disability discrimination law all failed. But the court held that at common law an employer has no right to suspend an employee without pay. Doing so repudiated her contract, so whether the direction was reasonable did not matter. The court accepted that it materially contributed to a persistent depressive disorder.","Given her performance history, the court put the chance she would have stayed until her planned retirement at only 15%. That left $11,994.41 in lost wages after what Telstra had already paid. It awarded $30,000 for the psychiatric injury, and with interest the final judgment, in February 2025, was $45,933.92."],takeaway:"Being told to stay home while your employer checks your fitness is not the same as being lawfully stood down. Unless your contract or an agreement allows it, an employer that keeps you away from work and stops paying you may be breaching your contract.",note:"Decided a month before the High Court's decision in *Elisha v Vision Australia Limited* [2024] HCA 50, which confirmed that damages for psychiatric injury can be recovered for breach of an employment contract. Final orders were made in *Martin v Telstra Corporation Ltd (No 3)* [2025] FedCFamC2G 274.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-contract-disputes-triple-zero-operator-sent-home.jpg",alt:"An older call-centre worker with a headset round her neck walks out past her colleagues as a manager waits by the open door."}},{id:"truck-salesman-leaflet-drop",headline:"Truck sales manager gave notice and was told to drop leaflets",name:"Willigen v The Geelong Truck Company & Anor",citation:"[2018] FCCA 3374",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCCA/2018/3374.html",tribunal:"Federal Circuit Court of Australia",decided:"21 November 2018",outcome:"$20,000 (the small claims limit)",result:"employee",teaser:"When a Geelong truck sales manager gave four weeks' notice, he was driven home, his phone was cut off and he was told to spend his notice letterboxing. The court found a constructive dismissal and ordered his unpaid wages, commission and bonus.",story:["Peter Willigen sold new Fuso trucks in Geelong from 2012, later as General Manager, Fuso Sales. In 2017 the business ended its Fuso dealership and moved to Hino trucks. Mr Willigen, whose customers were Fuso buyers, decided to leave. After checking with the Fair Work Ombudsman, he gave four weeks' notice on 22 September 2017.","The director wanted him to finish on the Monday. That Friday another employee was told to drive him home, and his mobile phone was disconnected. On Monday morning an email directed that he work out his notice canvassing Geelong and dropping off brochures. He left the showroom within 15 minutes. At 9.37am an email agreeing to finish up 'by mutual agreement' was sent from his computer. The court found he did not send it.","The judge found Mr Willigen an honest and candid witness, while the director 'appeared to regard the witness box as a platform from which to make speeches'. There had been no agreement to end the job, and moving a general manager to leaflet drops was a constructive dismissal. He was owed four weeks' wages and the leave that would have accrued.","On his 26 commission claims, the employer said profits were wiped out because the manufacturer had not paid incentive payments, and that some orders had been passed to another dealer. The court rejected both as grounds for refusing commission. It also accepted that he had been promised a $10,000 bonus for selling two buses, half of it unpaid.","The total came to $24,784, cut to the $20,000 small claims limit. Judgment went against the company found to be his real employer, joined on the third day of the hearing, and the reasons were sent to the Fair Work Ombudsman."],takeaway:"If you resign and give the notice your contract requires, your employer cannot simply declare you gone, or give you demeaning work for the notice period. Commission on sales you secured can still be owed after you leave.",note:"The small claims limit was $20,000 at the time. It has been $100,000 since 1 July 2023.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-contract-disputes-truck-salesman-leaflet-drop.jpg",alt:"A man in a shirt and tie holds a
1stack of truck brochures on a suburban street, looking along a row of letterboxes."}},{id:"resigned-before-bonus-day",headline:"He stayed the whole bonus year but left before payday",name:"Varga v Papercut Software International Pty Ltd",citation:"[2019] FCCA 1003",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCCA/2019/1003.html",tribunal:"Federal Circuit Court of Australia",decided:"18 April 2019",outcome:"Bonus claim dismissed; about $1,930 in pay, leave and interest",result:"mixed",teaser:"A senior software engineer left a few weeks before his employer paid its annual bonuses, after being told he would still get his. His contract said bonuses were entirely at the directors' discretion, and that decided the case.",story:["Patrik Varga joined PaperCut, a Melbourne software company, as a senior software engineer in February 2016. His contract put him in the employee bonus scheme but said 'the amount, terms and schedule of any bonus are entirely at the discretion of the employer and as determined by PaperCut Directors'. Company presentations described the bonus as profit share, under the heading 'Share the success'.","On 14 September 2017 he resigned, effective 13 October. The company asked him to withdraw his resignation, and a letter lifted his salary to $125,000 from 1 September; he still left. People at the company told him he would receive the full bonus for 2016/17 despite resigning, and the company did not dispute that. But the directors then decided that only people still employed when bonuses were paid would get one, and the bonus was paid on 31 October 2017. Seven people who had left before the payment date missed out, Mr Varga among them.","He brought a small claim. The court found the letter had varied his contract, so he was owed the difference in wages from 1 September at $125,000 and in his annual leave payout, plus $150 instead of interest: about $1,930 in all.","The bonus claim failed. Whatever he had been told, the bonus was for the directors to decide, and they had not finally decided who would be eligible until after the assurance was given. When they did decide, he was no longer employed on the payment date."],takeaway:"If your contract says a bonus is at your employer's discretion, a manager's assurance may not turn it into an entitlement. Before resigning with a bonus due, check whether you must still be employed on the payment date.",note:"The small claims limit was $20,000 at the time. It has been $100,000 since 1 July 2023.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-contract-disputes-resigned-before-bonus-day.jpg",alt:"A young engineer holding his jacket pauses at an office door, looking back at colleagues cheering a pie chart on a wall screen."}},{id:"auction-house-profit-share",headline:"Auction house ordered to pay $1.38 million on a loosely worded bonus",name:"Benson v Lloyds Auctioneers and Valuers Pty Limited",citation:"[2025] FedCFamC2G 1401",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FedCFamC2G/2025/1401.html",tribunal:"Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia",decided:"27 August 2025",outcome:"$1,380,251 damages plus interest",result:"employee",teaser:"An auction house recruited a husband and wife to build a fine art division, promising them 20% of its profit above $200,000. They left six years later and sued, and the court rejected every argument the company made for not paying.",story:["Shane and Amanda Benson ran their own business buying, restoring and selling fine art, antiques, jewellery and luxury goods. In 2017 Lloyds Auctioneers recruited them to set up a Fine Arts and Luxury Goods division. Heads of agreement signed on 30 June 2017 gave each of them a salary of $100,000 and a bonus: Lloyds kept the first $200,000 of profit, and the bonus was 20% of profit after that.","They built and ran the division for six years. In early 2023 Lloyds raised their salaries to $150,000, then offered new contracts that left out the bonus scheme. The Bensons declined them, resigned in June 2023 and sued for the unpaid bonus.","Lloyds argued the bonus term was void for uncertainty, that 'profit' meant the profit of the whole company, and that the bonus had been abandoned by 2020. The court rejected all three. The agreement was 'inexpertly written' but had a commercial meaning: the profit of the division the Bensons ran. Lloyds called no witnesses from the business, and its accountant's figures showed the division losing millions, which made little sense for a company that kept it going and gave the couple pay rises. The court preferred the Bensons' forensic accountant and took the lower of his two estimates, $1,380,251.","Lloyds was also ordered to pay a $23,475 penalty for underpaying their annual leave when they left. It won one point on its cross-claim: without permission, Ms Benson had used a discount attached to a digital collectible she bought to cut her company's selling commission to 2.75%. That amount was left for the parties to work out."],takeaway:"A bonus promised in a short or informal document can still be enforced, even if it is loosely worded. An employer offering a new contract without the bonus does not, by itself, bring the old promise to an end.",note:"Decided in August 2025. Before the trial, Lloyds was refused leave to appeal a ruling that kept the hearing dates ([2025] FCA 324). Interest and the amount of the cross-claim were left for the parties to agree.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-contract-disputes-auction-house-profit-share.jpg",alt:"A couple in an auction warehouse full of paintings and antiques read a single sheet of paper beside an auctioneer's gavel."}},{id:"budget-of-a-loss",headline:"Hitting a budget that forecast a loss still earned the bonus",name:"Heldberg v Rand Transport (1986) Pty Ltd",citation:"[2018] FCA 1141",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2018/1141.html",tribunal:"Federal Court of Australia",decided:"2 August 2018",outcome:"$34,000 in unpaid incentive bonuses",result:"mixed",teaser:"A transport manager moved from Perth to Adelaide on a promise of $3,400 a month for achieving the state budget. Made redundant three years later, he sued for that and much more. He won ten months of bonuses and lost everything else.",story:["Anthony Heldberg joined Rand Transport, a refrigerated freight and cold storage company, in 2002 as a night shift storeperson in Perth, and worked his way up. In 2014 he moved to Adelaide as SA State Manager, responsible for about 150 employees. His contract offered a '$3,400 per month bonus (paid two months in arrears) for achieving the SA state budget', with the first three months guaranteed. After those three months he was never paid it again.","In March 2017 his job was made redundant. Rand paid him five weeks' pay in lieu of notice and 12 weeks' severance. He sued for the bonuses, extra severance under a 2003 policy, damages for not getting reasonable notice, and compensation for being misled about the bonus.","Rand said the bonus depen
1ded on the annual budget. Justice White disagreed: a bonus expressed 'per month', paid two months in arrears, with the first three months guaranteed, pointed to the monthly budget. Rand's South Australian budgets forecast a loss every month, so the state could achieve budget while still losing money, as long as the loss was smaller than planned. That happened in ten months, and he was awarded $34,000.","The rest failed. His 2014 contract replaced the earlier ones, so the old severance policy no longer applied. His contract required him to abide by company policies, which brought in the policy manual's notice table, and he had been paid that notice. The judge said six months would have been reasonable notice had the common law rule applied. The claim of being misled failed because he could not show any loss: counting what he went on to earn in a new job after Rand, he was better off than if he had stayed in Perth."],takeaway:"Read a bonus clause closely: how the amount is expressed, when it is paid and what is guaranteed can show which target it is measured against. A term requiring you to follow company policies can also bring a policy's notice periods into your contract.",note:"The judge left open whether the minimum notice in s 117 of the Fair Work Act displaces the common law right to reasonable notice.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-contract-disputes-budget-of-a-loss.jpg",alt:"A manager in a hi-vis vest studies two bar charts in a chilly cold-storage warehouse as forklifts move pallets."}},{id:"nineteen-years-nine-months-notice",headline:"Accused of misconduct after 19 years, she won nine months' notice",name:"McAlister v Yara Australia Pty Ltd",citation:"[2021] FCCA 1409",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCCA/2021/1409.html",tribunal:"Federal Circuit Court of Australia",decided:"25 June 2021",outcome:"Nine months' notice, less five weeks paid",result:"employee",teaser:"A 54-year-old manager who helped set up a fertiliser company's Australian business was dismissed for serious misconduct over two documents she signed. The court found she had authority to sign both, had done nothing seriously wrong, and was owed nine months' notice.",story:["Janelle McAlister helped set up the Australian arm of a Norwegian fertiliser group in 1996 and worked for Yara Australia for almost 19 years, rising to administration, logistics and human resources manager. In April 2015 a new managing director restructured the business. Ms McAlister learned at a meeting that her role had changed; most of her duties were taken away, and she was left with 'an empty title'.","In October 2015 Yara decided to stop using a customs broker whose owner was married to a Yara employee, a relationship long known in the company. The broker asked whether Yara was ending a contract running to November 2015, which Ms McAlister had signed in February. She had also signed a routine shipping authority for the broker's new owner. On 16 October 2015 Yara summarily dismissed her for serious misconduct, paying five weeks in lieu of notice.","The court found she had authority to sign both documents and had spoken to the former managing director about the contract. The contract caused Yara no loss, and the authority saved it detention charges. Matters Yara relied on were never put to her, and the disciplinary interview was a formality. Her minor slips did not warrant summary dismissal.","Her 1996 contract said nothing about notice, so the court implied a term of reasonable notice, and held that the minimum in the National Employment Standards did not displace it. She was 54, had served 19 years, had narrow experience and no formal qualifications, and had struggled for years to find comparable work. The court fixed nine months, valued on her $191,200 package, less the five weeks paid. Her claims for redundancy pay, and that she was dismissed because of her age, back surgery or complaints, failed."],takeaway:"If your contract sets no notice period, you may be entitled to reasonable notice, which for long-serving or older staff can be many months rather than the statutory minimum. An employer that dismisses for serious misconduct must be able to prove it.",note:"Courts have differed on whether the minimum notice in s 117 of the Fair Work Act displaces the common law right to reasonable notice. This
1judgment held that it does not.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-contract-disputes-nineteen-years-nine-months-notice.jpg",alt:"A woman sits alone at a bare open-plan desk with a box at her feet while managers meet behind a glass wall."}}]],["settlement-deed-review",[{id:"capacity-to-sign",headline:"She signed a deed in 2008, then spent a decade trying to undo it",name:"Rossi v Qantas Airways Ltd",citation:"[2024] FCAFC 144",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCAFC/2024/144.html",tribunal:"Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia",decided:"13 November 2024",outcome:"Deed upheld; appeal dismissed",result:"employer",teaser:"A long-serving flight attendant signed a deed ending her claims against Qantas in 2008, then argued years later that she had been too unwell to understand it. The Full Federal Court held the deed stood.",story:["Sara Rossi was a long-haul flight attendant with Qantas from 1988 until 2003, when she took voluntary redundancy. In 2006 she made a workers' compensation claim for a psychological injury she said was caused by her work. Qantas denied it, and the case was listed for trial in late 2008.","Shortly before a settlement conference, the psychiatrist assessing her for her own lawyers revised his view of how much of her illness was work-related, which put her claim in 'severe peril'. At the conference Qantas offered $50,000. Two days later, after her lawyer read his written advice to her, Qantas raised the offer to $75,000 plus $40,000 for legal costs. With her lawyer and barrister at the conference, she signed a deed releasing Qantas from all claims arising from her employment.","She was distressed that evening and later refused the money. A decade on she lodged a discrimination complaint about her time at Qantas. To pursue it, she first had to have the 2008 deed set aside, and she argued she had lacked the mental capacity to make it.","The Full Court said the test is whether she could have understood the general nature of the deal if it had been explained to her. This deed was simple: she would be paid, the case would end, and she could bring no further claim. 'That is not a complex concept.' The evidence showed she had understood the offer and the psychiatrist's revised view, and had asked about the confidentiality term so she could talk to her family. Even her own expert psychiatrist accepted she could understand the deed's general nature.","The trial judge had accepted she was suffering from depression and felt distress. But being unwell and upset is not the same as being unable to understand what you sign. The appeal was dismissed, with costs."],takeaway:"The test is whether you could understand the general nature of the deed if it were explained to you; feeling unwell, upset or pressured is not enough on its own. If you are unwell or overwhelmed, say so and ask for more time before you sign.",note:"The deed was tested under the Victorian court rules on compromises by a person under a disability; the Full Court said the same principles apply at general law ([31]).",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-settlement-deed-review-capacity-to-sign.jpg",alt:"A woman sits alone on a court corridor bench holding an old document above a thick folder."}},{id:"signed-on-the-spot",headline:"Told his job was redundant, he signed an 8-page deal on the spot",name:"Ran Zheng v UA Holdings Pty Ltd",citation:"[2025] FWC 1952",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2025/1952.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"8 July 2025",outcome:"Claim dismissed: the agreement binds",result:"employer",teaser:"Ran Zheng was told his job was redundant and signed an eight-page agreement in the same meeting. He later said he had been in shock, but his unfair dismissal claim was dismissed.",story:["Ran Zheng had been Factory Director at UA Holdings since 1 September 2018, running the day-to-day operations of its production facility. On 4 March 2025 he met the general manager and the HR director and was told his job was being made redundant. In that same meeting he signed an eight-page 'Redundancy Agreement', which offered a more favourable package: severance pay and a golden handshake on top of his accrued entitlements.","The document worked like a deed of release. He released the company from all claims about his employment, his contract and its ending, and acknowledged he had had the opportunity to get legal advice and signed voluntarily. Two days later he emailed, saying the agreement was invali
1d because the figures were wrong, and asked to renegotiate. He then lodged an unfair dismissal claim.","Mr Zheng said he had been caught off guard and was in a 'trance' or state of shock. He said English is not his first language, he had no real chance to get legal advice, and he assumed a 'Redundancy Agreement' dealt only with his redundancy. The Commission accepted he was likely taken by surprise. But he did not ask for time, did not challenge the document that day, and kept the money he was paid. He later reviewed it at home with his wife.","The Commission found the agreement was binding and covered his dismissal; the company's later corrections only increased his payment. Whether he signed under duress or without real understanding was a question for a court, not the Commission, and he had never asked a court to set the agreement aside. His claim was dismissed."],takeaway:"You do not have to sign anything in the meeting where you are told your job is going; ask for time, take the document away and get advice. Once it is signed and the money is kept, the Commission is likely to treat your claims as settled.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-settlement-deed-review-signed-on-the-spot.jpg",alt:"A man in a hi-vis vest signs a thick agreement in an office above a factory floor while two managers watch."}},{id:"agreed-the-money-not-the-release",headline:"He agreed the money, but not the release, so there was no deal",name:"Yun Zhong Xie v CB Ideal Tapware Pty Ltd",citation:"[2023] FWC 1674",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2023/1674.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"11 July 2023",outcome:"No binding settlement; claim goes on",result:"employee",teaser:"At conciliation, Yun Zhong Xie named a figure he would settle for, then questioned the release clauses in the deed that followed. The employer, unaware of his concerns, accepted the deed, but the Commission held there was no deal.",story:["Yun Zhong Xie, a fabricator at a tapware company, was summarily dismissed in February 2023. The employer said it was for serious misconduct; he said the dismissal was unfair. He speaks limited English and, after his advocate stopped acting, ran his own case with a Mandarin interpreter.","At a conciliation with a Commissioner in May 2023, Mr Xie offered to settle for a sum of money. Nothing was said about any other terms. The Commissioner's chambers then sent both sides the Commission's standard terms of settlement with his figure in them, and his offer was to stay open for a week.","Mr Xie did not sign. Five days later he emailed the chambers asking why the release clauses were there. As he later explained, he had a related workers' compensation claim and did not want to give up any injury claim. He did not copy in the employer. On the last day the offer was open, the employer, unaware of his concerns, accepted the deed. It later asked the Commission to strike out his claim because the matter had settled.","The Commission refused. Mr Xie had agreed the amount, but not the release terms, which he first saw in the Commission's draft. **'Release terms are fundamental terms of a settlement contract'**, the Deputy President said: they set out what rights are given up in return for the money. Without agreement on them there was no meeting of minds. 'This is not a case of buyer's remorse.'","The Commission did say Mr Xie should have copied the employer in, and accepted the employer had acted in good faith. It even observed that the deed appeared to protect his injury claims. But none of that turned the deed into a contract he had not agreed to. His unfair dismissal claim was sent on to a hearing."],takeaway:"Agreeing on a figure is not the same as agreeing to a deed. If you have concerns about a release or any other clause, raise them promptly, in writing, with everyone involved, including the other side.",note:"This decision only decided whether a settlement had been reached. The outcome of Mr Xie's unfair dismissal claim is not part of this case study. The facts are set out in the interim decision, [2023] FW
1C 1641.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-settlement-deed-review-agreed-the-money-not-the-release.jpg",alt:"A man at a library computer types an email beside a draft deed with three clauses circled."}},{id:"settled-at-conciliation",headline:"She settled at conciliation, then refused to sign the paperwork",name:"Kellin Behrendorff v JB HiFi",citation:"[2022] FWC 953",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FWC/2022/953.html",tribunal:"Fair Work Commission",decided:"18 May 2022",outcome:"Claim dismissed: settlement binds",result:"employer",teaser:"Kellin Behrendorff settled her unfair dismissal claim at conciliation, then refused to sign because the written agreement barred her from ever working for the company again. The Commission held the deal was done anyway.",story:["Kellin Behrendorff lodged an unfair dismissal claim against JB HiFi on 31 December 2021. At a conciliation with a Commission staff conciliator in February 2022, the claim apparently settled, and JB HiFi was to put the agreement in writing.","The written agreement arrived on 17 February 2022. It provided for a payment of $2,137.76 gross, for her termination to be recorded as a resignation, and for her to delete her social media posts about the company. It also included a restraint: she would not work anywhere in the JB HiFi group again. She replied that this 'was never discussed' and that she would not sign until it was removed. JB HiFi said the clause was standard and refused to take it out.","Ms Behrendorff wrote to the Commission several times, saying no agreement had been reached. The Commissioner asked her for a statement about what was said at the conciliation and offered a hearing. She did not provide the evidence or take up the hearing, so the matter was decided on the written material.","The Commission found that a settlement had been reached at the conciliation, and that the parties meant to record it in writing 'in a fuller form but without any differing effect'. The dispute was now about the wording of the document, not about whether her claim had settled. A later disagreement over the written terms did not undo the deal, and the settlement brought her claim to an end. Her application was dismissed. She could still collect the money by signing."],takeaway:"An agreement reached at conciliation can bind you before anything is signed. Before you say yes, ask what else will be in the written document, or make your agreement subject to signing a formal deed.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-settlement-deed-review-settled-at-conciliation.jpg",alt:"A young woman on her couch deletes a video on her phone beside a settlement agreement with one clause crossed out."}},{id:"exit-deeds-no-dispute",headline:"Bank advisers' exit deeds did not sign away their award rights",name:"Wardman v Macquarie Bank Ltd",citation:"[2023] FCAFC 13",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCAFC/2023/13.html",tribunal:"Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia",decided:"17 February 2023",outcome:"Deeds did not bar award claims",result:"mixed",teaser:"Fifteen former Macquarie Bank advisers had signed deeds of release when they left. When they sued for award entitlements, the Full Federal Court held the deeds did not stop them, though most of the pay claims still failed.",story:["Macquarie Bank paid its advisers through commission plus a package it called 'Basic Cost Responsibility', part of which was paid as fixed monthly amounts. After leaving, many sued, arguing they had in effect been paid commission only and were owed award wages and leave entitlements. Forty-eight took the case to the Full Federal Court.","Fifteen of the former advisers in the appeals had signed deeds of release on the way out. Nicholas Sandford signed his in May 2015, when he resigned and retired from the industry; it gave him two years of revenue from his former clients and released all present and future claims, including those 'arising under any award'. Many others were signed on redundancy in 2018. The trial judge held that Mr Sandford's and Mr Edwards's deeds barred their claims and ordered them to pay the bank's costs, but that 13 others did not.","The Full Court held that none of the deeds barred the claims. Rights under awards and the Fair Work Act generally cannot be contracted out of. A genuine compromise of an existing dispute about them can bind, but there has to be a dispute to compromise. Nothing in any of the deeds, or their circumstances, pointed to such a dispute; Mr Sandford said he did not then know he had an underpayment claim. None of the money paid under the deeds was said to be for those entitlements. The costs orders against Mr Sandford and Mr Edwards were overturned.","Winning the deeds point did n
1ot mean winning the money. Most of the advisers' pay claims failed, including those for wages and for leave and public holiday pay. Only a claim for annual leave loading survived. After the judgment, the bank and the advisers settled, and in August 2023 the Court made consent orders dismissing the proceedings with no order as to costs."],takeaway:"A broad release in an exit deed may not cover your minimum award or National Employment Standards entitlements if there was no dispute about them when you signed. If you think you were underpaid, get advice before assuming a deed has closed the door.",note:"One of the three judges, Snaden J, agreed about the deeds but would have dismissed all of the pay claims ([288]â[289]). The later consent orders are in Wardman v Macquarie Bank Limited (No 2) [2023] FCAFC 125.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-settlement-deed-review-exit-deeds-no-dispute.jpg",alt:"A retired man in his study compares a stack of old pay advices with a signed exit deed."}},{id:"paid-nine-days-late",headline:"Her $15,000 settlement arrived nine days late. Her case stayed closed",name:"Marie v Trustee for Aspire Residences Unit Trust",citation:"[2026] FCA 553",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2026/553.html",tribunal:"Federal Court of Australia",decided:"6 May 2026",outcome:"Application dismissed; costs ordered",result:"employer",teaser:"Rebecca Marie settled her Federal Court claim for $15,000. When the money was nine days late she asked the Court to reopen her case, and a minute later she was told it had been paid. She pressed on, lost, and had to pay costs.",story:["Rebecca Marie's employment ended on 16 May 2024. She sued her former employer in the Federal Court, claiming breaches of the general protections in the Fair Work Act. At mediation the case settled. A deed of release dated 31 March 2025 required the employer to pay $15,000, without admitting liability, within 14 days of receiving her signed deed. The deed had no clause making time 'of the essence'.","She returned the signed deed that same day. The money did not come. On 23 April 2025, nine days after it was due, she lodged an application at 12.40pm asking the Court to reopen her case and either enforce the deed or set it aside. At 12.41pm she was told the money had been paid. She kept it and pressed on, seeking extra compensation and penalties for the stress the delay had caused. The employer offered her an extra $100; interest on the late payment would have been about $30.","Justice McElwaine dismissed the application. The deed released her original claim, and a breach of a settlement gives rise to a new claim on the settlement; it does not bring the old case back to life. Paying late breached a time limit that was not essential, which is no ground to undo a compromise. Once the money was paid there was nothing left to enforce, setting the deed aside would need a new proceeding, and her claims about stress raised contested questions that could not be decided this way.","She had been right to file before the payment arrived. But, acting reasonably, she should have withdrawn once it did, so she was ordered to pay the employer's costs from 30 April 2025. The usual protection against costs in Fair Work cases did not help her, because this application was about a breach of contract."],takeaway:"If an employer pays a settlement late, the usual remedy is to enforce the deed, not to restart the original claim. Once the money arrives, think carefully before pressing on, because continuing the dispute can cost you.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-settlement-deed-review-paid-nine-days-late.jpg",alt:"A woman hands papers to a court registry clerk as her phone lights up with a notification."}},{id:"lost-earnings-taxed-as-etp",headline:"A $505,500 payout for 'lost earnings' was taxed as an ETP",name:"Stark v Commissioner of Taxation",citation:"[2023] FCA 1523",url:"https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2023/1523.html",tribunal:"Federal Court of Australia",decided:"19 December 2023",outcome:"Payout taxed as an ETP; appeal dismissed",result:"employer",teaser:"David Stark argued that the $505,500 for 'lost earnings' in his settlement with a government agency was tax-free compensation for a destroyed earning capacity. The Federal Court held it was an employment termination payment.",story:["In 2000, aged 55, David Stark accepted a job with Indigenous Business Australia and turned down another offer. In December 2001 his employment was terminated. He sued in the Supreme Court of Queensland for breach of his employment terms and for misleading or deceptive conduct, claiming the job offer had led him to give up the other one and that his age and outdated skills then kept him out of work.","A trial began in February 2009 and was adjourned for mediation, where the case settled. The deed paid him $555,500: $50,000 for general damages and $505,500 'in respect of the claim by Mr Stark for lost earnings'. The agency admitted no liability, and he released it from all claims connected with his employment and its termination.","The tax office said the $505,500 was an employment termination payment, or ETP. It later assessed the payment as ordinary income instead, which it conceded was wrong, and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal held it was an ETP. Representing himself, Mr Stark argued it was compensation for a wrong or injury done to him, and so not taxable at all, or else a genuine redundancy payment.","The Federal Court rejected each argument. The payment 'followed on' from his dismissal: without the termination there would have been no claim, so it was received in consequence of it. It was not compensation for an injury, because a settlement made without any admission or finding concerns only an alleged wrong; the money was paid for the wide release he gave. And on his own account he was dismissed after a disagreement, not because his job was genuinely redundant. The Tribunal's ruling stood: the payment was an ETP, which is taxed concessionally. He was ordered to pay the costs of the appeal."],takeaway:"How a settlement is described, and what claims it settles, affects how it is taxed. A payment for releasing claims connected with the end of your job will often be treated as an ETP, so check the tax treatment with an adviser before you sign.",note:"The ETP caps and tax rates have changed since 2009. The case decided how the payment was characterised, not the amount of tax; current figures are in the tax section of this page.",image:{src:"/images/lc/cartoon/emp-case-settlement-deed-review-lost-earnings-taxed-as-etp.jpg",alt:"An older man represents himself at a courtroom bar table beside a tall stack of binders."}}]]].map(e=>{let[a,t]=e,n=(0,o.lP)(a);if(!n)throw Error("case-studies/index.ts: no nav entry for ".concat(a));return{slug:a,label:n.label,href:(0,o.hR)(a),studies:t}}),i=n.reduce((e,a)=>e+a.studies.length,0),s=(e,a)=>"/employment-law/case-studies/".concat(e,"/").concat(a);function r(e,a){let t=n.find(a=>a.slug===e),o=null==t?void 0:t.studies.find(e=>e.id===a);return t&&o?{group:t,study:o}:void 0}},10359:function(e,a,t){t.d(a,{Sj:function(){return s},TH:function(){return n},hR:function(){return i},lP:function(){return r}});let o=[{slug:"unfair-dismissal",group:"losing-your-job",label:"Unfair dismissal",blurb:"Sacked without a good reason, or without a fair process",icon:"briefcase"},{slug:"general-protections",group:"losing-your-job",label:"General protections",blurb:"Punished for a complaint, a right, your leave or who you are",icon:"shield-check"},{slug:"redundancy",group:"losing-your-job",label:"Redundancy",blurb:"Your job was made redundant â was it genuine, and were you paid right?",icon:"user-x"},{slug:"underpayment",group:"at-work",label:"Underpayment",blurb:"Paid less than your award, agreement or the minimum wage",icon:"coins"},{slug:"workplace-bullying",group:"at-work",label:"Workplace bullying",blurb:"Repeated unreasonable treatment at work, and how to make it stop",icon:"shield-alert"},{slug:"sexual-harassment",group:"at-work",label:"Sexual harassment",blurb:"Unwelcome sexual conduct connected with work, and where to take it",icon:"shield-x"},{slug:"discrimination",group:"at-work",label:"Discrimination",blurb:"Treated worse because of pregnancy, disability, age, race or caring duties",icon:"scale"},{slug:"employment-contracts",group:"contracts-and-exits",label:"Restraints and confidentiality",blurb
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