The Queensland Supreme Court last month awarded $1,703,530 in damages against an employer, whose Chief Executive Officer's "unjustified blaming, humiliation, belittling, isolation, undermining and contemptuous disregard" of the plaintiff employee resulted in serious psychiatric injury. The employer was found vicariously liable for the CEO's actions and to have breached its own duty of care. Repeated mistreatment and harassment of employee by CEO Ms Robinson was the District Director of Nursing for the Cape York Health Service and brought her claim against the State of Queensland for negligence and vicarious liability. Ms Robinson complained that, from March 2010 to 17 January 2011, the CEO repeatedly harassed and mistreated her. This conduct included: unjustified, loud and aggressive disciplining and belittling of her in public and in front of other staff on multiple occasions; failing to inform her of allegations against her and failing to provide those alleg...

Knowledge is power when it comes to managing claims risk Unfair dismissal applications are all too common and employers regularly find themselves in hot water when they are on the receiving end of one. Whilst the outcome of every unfair dismissal case tends to turn on its own individual merits, opportunities to learn and refresh one’s knowledge consistently arise – and knowledge is power when it comes to managing claims risk. To assist you in managing your unfair dismissal claims risk, this article set out some important lessons and reminders compiled from a number of recent unfair dismissal decisions made by the Fair Work Commission. If an employee has “gotten away” with certain conduct in the past, it can be difficult to later justify their dismissal for such conduct. In West v Holcim (Australia) Pty Ltd [2017] FWC 2346, the applicant employee allowed a casual labour hire worker to operate a crane without adequate supervision. This was despite the fact that the labour hire wo...

Workplace Investigation Allegations and Procedural Fairness- The importance of ensuring correct procedure when it comes to advising a person subject of a complaint what the actual allegations against them are. During the course of an investigation there comes a point where you must ensure that the person subject of a complaint is afforded procedural fairness. Failure to afford an employee Procedural Fairness can result in; Successful unfair dismissal action by terminated employees at the Fair Work Commission Orders for compensation against the employer Orders for reinstatement of the terminated employee Negative publicity and damage to brand image Negative impact on the business in general General rules of Procedural Fairness – the rights of the employee     The right to know the nature of the allegation/complaint against them in cases of behaviour issues The right to know is referenced in the Fair Work Act 2009 – s387 – Criteria for considering harshness...