A major medical practice's former chief executive has had his application for a bullying order against two doctor-directors thrown out by the FWC, which observed that "short of storming the barricades" he had no prospect of ever meeting the threshold requirement of returning to his job.
An FWC unfair dismissal application can be both incomplete and unaccompanied by the required fee as long as it is filed within the statutory 21 days, a senior Commission member has found.
A majority shareholder who "worked very hard" as company secretary of a start-up for more than two years before her board chairman husband informed her she was being removed was not protected from unfair dismissal, the FWC has found.
A senior FWC member has approved an employer's request for legal representation in a dismissal case, but not before requiring hearings be conducted in private, that he be free to provide "appropriate" guidance to the unrepresented former worker, and that he retain the power to revoke permission if the lawyer complicates proceedings.
The FWC has upheld the sacking of a long-serving handyman for serious misconduct that included continually touching a young receptionist, finding it was "understandable" given their age difference that she did not feel able to tell him to stop.
A health care clinic manager has failed to persuade the FWC that her HR-expert husband's representative error and the so-called "reverse synergy effect" resulting from her son’s concurrent unfair dismissal claim explained her application arriving 32 days' late.
In an inherent requirements case highlighting the need for employers to keep detailed records about return to work plans, the FWC has upheld the dismissal of a bus driver kept off the road for 16 months by a combination of nerve pain and anxiety.
A geoscientist made redundant after almost two decades with the same company has been given a second chance to argue he was unfairly dismissed after a full bench found his former employer potentially led a Commission member into error when asserting there were no alternative positions available.
In an FWC case heavily reliant on circumstantial evidence, a former soldier with an unblemished work record has had his dismissal for stealing company property upheld after the tribunal heard of airport mix-ups on a remote island, alleged union skullduggery, an upset stomach – and a dead bat.
