The High Court will next month begin hearing mining giant Peabody's challenge to a full Federal Court finding that it did not genuinely make workers redundant when it failed to consider whether it could redeploy workers to jobs performed by contractors.
A FWC full bench has refused to overturn the dismissal of a worker in a safety-critical role, upholding a member's finding that the seriousness of the worker's three positive drug tests outweighed procedural shortcomings.
Virgin Australia has failed to reverse the reinstatement of a flight attendant sacked for drinking a glass of prosecco within eight hours of a shift, and further accused of breaching its fatigue management policy by having s-x after requesting a shift change due to tiredness.
Two senior corporate lawyers will resume their pursuit of millions in compensation from Super Retail Group after the Federal Court rejected their claims that an enforceable settlement had already been agreed, while a full court will soon separately hear the employer's appeal aimed at suppressing details of its settlement offer.
A FWC full bench has advised a worker of her right to enforce in court a seven-months-late $32,000 unfair dismissal compensation order, after it ruled that a commissioner correctly understood that the company misinterpreted her "this is shit" curse in her "thick" Scottish accent as "I quit".
UPDATED A High Court majority has clarified that a 115-year-old UK House of Lords decision does not bar the recovery of damages for botched sackings, restoring the award of $1.44 million to a consultant unable to work since his "sham" dismissal in 2015.
A Federal Court judge has cast doubt over a manager's $1.5 million adverse action payout in a ruling highlighting the difficulty in establishing who in large corporations ultimately makes the decision to dismiss an employee.
A presidential member placed too much emphasis on two workers' failure to chase up their unfair dismissal applications, a FWC full bench has ruled, finding the representative's miscalculation of the due date responsible for the whole delay.
A FWC full bench has refused to extend time for a HR business partner seeking to appeal her unfair dismissal decision, finding she had failed to demonstrate any legal errors and instead merely showed "a preference for a different result".
A FWC full bench has upheld the reinstatement of a Sydney Trains employee found to have traces of cocaine in his system, despite ruling that a senior member wrongly concluded that employers need to establish workers who fail drug and alcohol tests are at risk of being "impaired" before sacking them.
