The High Court will consider whether employers' duty of care and consequent exposure to damages extends to providing "safe" disciplinary and dismissal processes that protect sacked workers from psychiatric injury.
A European expatriate who regularly swore at his Australian subordinates in an apparent attempt to spur them to achieve work standards expected in his homeland has lost his adverse action case against his former employer, after a court ruled his behaviour warranted summary dismissal.
A small not-for-profit organisation with no shortage of valid reasons for dismissing a finance manager who "disappeared" during an audit period has nevertheless been ordered to pay her more than $12,000 compensation after the FWC found its executive director should not have acted as "judge, jury and executioner" by overseeing the entire disciplinary process.
The FWC has awarded compensation to an accounts assistant who said she could not return to the office after working from home for almost a decade, while her employer maintained that the arrangement only began with the pandemic.
The NSW Police Force has failed to knock out orders to compensate an officer who suffered a psychological injury after it transferred him and banned him from talking to female colleagues without supervision while it investigated s-xual harassment complaints.
A worker who is accusing his employer of sacking him after he complained about his co-workers' alleged discriminatory behaviour - included calling him a "skippy poofter" and grabbing his genitalia - has failed to cap his potential maximum court costs at $30,000.
The FWC has taken a leading law firm to task over its protracted investigation of three TAFE employees accused of fraudulent, dishonest and corrupt behaviour, rejecting findings of misconduct that led to their dismissal and ordering their reinstatement.
The Federal Court has flayed the Republic of Italy for failing to heed Australian IR laws in its local consulates and has ordered it to pay a $94,000 fine, $7500 compensation and indemnity costs to an administrative employee after it failed to pay him annual leave loading for six years, to keep records in English and to produce the records on demand.
The FWC has ordered compensation but declined to reinstate 24 DP World wharfies sacked in 2021 for refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19, finding that although the dismissal process was bungled, the workers "significantly contributed" to the situation.
A judge has held that an "instant" online script did not excuse an underpaying employer from having to attend a penalty hearing, while also warning that in future the court is unlikely to accept certificates from providers using the model adopted by the Wesfarmers-owned service.
