A paid agent from the "school of hard knocks" is facing a costs bill of almost $30,000 after an employer racked up unnecessary legal expenses due to his unreasonable handling of a worker's unfair sacking case.
The FWC has cleared the way for a project manager to pursue his unfair dismissal claim after finding his retention payments do not push him above the high-income threshold as they are not "earnings".
A judge has criticised Aldi for adopting an "unnecessarily technical position" against a self-represented worker but ultimately rejected his bid for a six-month extension to file a general protections claim, after finding he falsified medical evidence.
A schoolteacher "absurdly" sacked for yelling at students has won maximum compensation, after a FWC member retreated from his initial order to reinstate her.
In a genuine redundancy ruling, the FWC has confirmed that it simply needs to consider whether employers have notified a retrenchment in writing, rather than whether they have provided notice in "the most optimum manner".
Drawing on limited legislative guidance and case law on instalment payments, the FWC has ordered an employer to split a $30,000 compensation payment over two months rather than the 12 it sought, finding the worker entitled to the "fruits" of his claim "in a timely manner".
A worker's covert recordings of disciplinary meetings might have been lawful if he had only used them to "aid his recall", rather than submitting the audio and transcripts as evidence in his unfair dismissal case, the FWC has ruled.
The FWC has backed the sacking of a worker who shoved and swore at a woman as they rode an elevator towards his office, rejecting his claims of self-defence and that the employer's code of conduct did not apply because his shift had not started.
The FWC has extended time for a HR manager to challenge his sacking for allegedly tweaking his own contract, finding a union industrial officer's failed use of the federal election as a "mind memo" led to him lodging it two days late.
A judge has binned the $7.5 million lawsuit of an academic claiming his "oppressor characteristics" made him a victim of a university's diversity policies, observing that while he might have "a very legitimate gripe", industrial laws are not the platform to advance his crusade against "woke ideology".
