Unfair Dismissal – Your worker has been with you for HOW long?

How long does an employee have to be employed before they’re eligible to make an unfair dismissal claim?  The short answer is “that depends on the size of your business.”  If you’re a small business, the employee will have 12 months before they can claim eligibility. If you employ more than twelve employees, they will only have six months. But how is that six months calculated?   In Emma Wells v ABC Blinds & Awnings...

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Doctors Boss fined over $50,000 for threatening worker

The fact that an employer is a small business, that is having fewer than 15 employees, does not stop significant penalties being imposed upon it for proven breaches of the Fair Work Act. Whatever size its business, an employer, must comply with the law. This much is plain from the decision in FWO v Windaroo Medical Surgery Pty Ltd & Others (No 2) [2016] FCCA 2505. In this case the Federal Circuit Court awarded penalties totalling $51,480 against the employer and two managers, who had been involved in breaches of the Act. The...

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Employer’s liability for the criminal conduct of its employees

  The High Court of Australia in a recent decision of Prince Alfred College Incorporated v ADC [2016] HCA 37 looked at the vexed issue of vicarious liability for institutions arising out of sexual abuse. The majority of the High Court found that a criminal offence such as sexual abuse by an employee does not prevent the possibility that the institution will be liable vicariously. The High Court determined that the relevant test to be considered is whether in this case the role of the housemaster placed him in a position of power...

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