Can you sue for mental harm after getting sacked?

Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily os. Oh, now it makes sense.

Good morning and welcome to the Daily Oz. It is Monday, the fifteenth of December.

I'm Sam and I'm a child. Last week, the High Court made a decision in a landmark case that will no doubt have major implications for Australian employees. It opens the door for workers to sue the employer for poor mental health after being unfairly dismissed.

It's funny because this almost seems like an inevitable part of an unfair dismissal case. The idea that that would be an unpleasant experience that would cause at least some level of mental harm didn't really surprise me. It's an incredibly traumatic experience for all parties involved, and it does make sense that we're talking about mental harm in the process of a dismissal. But now it's been tested in

Okay, so this is quite a long story that kind of develops over the last.

Five years, as these cases often are, YELP.

So the High Court ruling last week's centers around the unfair dismissal of a man called Adam Alisha. So he worked for Vision Australia for almost a decade and in his last role there he was an adaptive technology consultant and that's relevant to the story. Alicia's role basically required him to travel across Australia where he would set up technology for vision impaired people in their homes and offices. Now, the court document shows that towards the end of his

Interesting, so he was having problems at work. He was having these sound sensitivity issues which were directly impacting his job working with sound and that was causing stress and that was causing conflict with colleagues. Was that part of the reason why he was actually fired?

Well, yes and no. So in March twenty fifteen, while on a work trip in rural Victoria, Alicia made a noise complaint at the hotel he was staying at. Right, But then after his stay, the hotel actually made a complaint to his employer, alleging that he was aggressive and intimidating during that interaction.

Right, so, not a good stay at a hotel. He complains about the sound, the hotel complains about his behavior. It's then in vision Australia's court to respond. How did they respond to that?

So actually it wasn't immediately dealt with because he went on annual leave.

Right, Okay, So he goes on annual after this trip which had some issues, and when he comes back that's when the problems start exactly.

So the issue was referred up to the HR department. But what was interesting was their reaction to the complaint. Management said it wasn't surprising and that his behavior had gotten worse.

And so I imagine there were conversations that were happening whilst this employee was on his annual leave, he gets back to work, management wants to have a chat with him. How did that then pan out?

Yeah, that's right. So on his first day back from annual leave, he was given a letter explaining that he was being stood down because of what happened at the hotel, and this is where the legal issues seemed to arise. So he was told to return to the office in two days where he was going to be given the opportunity to kind of explain himself. Along with that, Alicia was given strict orders not to speak to any other staff members or he would be immediately fired.

It's interesting how this one has panned out, and I guess we only know so much about it because it's been detailed in the court documents. But he did get fired. He didn't get fired for talking to his colleagues though.

That's right. At the meeting, Alisha denied these allegations, but he was still fired. We'll be back with a deep dive after this short break.

Okay, So we have an employee who's dismissed because of what management says is a pattern of behavior that kind of all accumulated in this incident at a hotel in Victoria. I'm normally the person who kind of explains the legal stuff here at TEDA, but you've really owned this story and this reporting over the last week. I want you to try and run with it. Talk me through what happens then when Elisha brings a case of unfair dismissal against Vision Australia to the courts.

Okay, so I'll give you the spark Notes version without all the legal jargon. So Alicia first filed an unfair dismissal case with the Fairwek Commission, and that was a couple months after he was fired.

And what actually.

Happened was Vision Australia settled and agreed to pay him more than twenty seven thousand dollars.

Which is not unusual for employers to try and kind of make something go away and for it to not eventuate into a year's long case. But that's exactly what's happened here. They settled, but then it landed up back in court.

Right yeah, And that happened years later. So in twenty twenty he launched a case in the Victorian Supreme Court and basically he alleged that his termination breached his employment contract and he argued that that firing caused depression and

So it's interesting. It sounds like it's moved from a case at the Fair Work Commission where it has settled quite quickly, to really a more substantive case in the Supreme Court, which is much more about Alicia's ability to have ongoing employment. And he would have argued that because of that traumatic experience, he's lost all of these earnings that he could have gotten over the next couple of decades. Even it's a big penalty for Vision Australia to pay

Down, Well, they reacted like any other company that wouldn't want to pay a former employee a million dollars. Yeah, they actually appeal the decision and in court they argued that Elisha shouldn't have been paid that much money for two main reasons.

Okay, And this is the really important bit. This forms the basis of their appeal. Let's go through a number one.

Okay, So number one, under Australian law, Alisha wasn't entitled to damages for poor mental health resulting from the breach contract.

Okay, So break that down. That means that Vision Australia tried to argue there's nothing in Australian law that says if you're sacked, you are entitled to damages if you are mentally harmed because of that incident. Okay, So then what's number two?

So number two, Vision Australia basically tried to argue that his poor mental health post firing was actually a product of his pre existing mental health conditions.

And we've talked through that before. That was part of how Vision Australia kind of diagnosed his behavior at that hotel and led to his sacking. So Vision Australia takes this decision from the Supreme Court and appeals it. And that's where we get to the High Court, which is why we're talking about this today. We've just had a decision from the High Court. Take me through what they said.

Well, the High Court actually overturned vision Australia's appeal and supported the original ruling, which was in favor of Alisia. That original ruling basically called his firing a sham and a disgrace.

Okay, So that's really interesting because the High Court is when the decisions are made that actually can't be appealed anymore unless there's some sort of new evidence or anything. What are the wider implications here? Then if we have that decision?

Yeah, you're absolutely right. So high Court judgments set legal precedents, which are basically cases that established the rules and principal subsequent cases with similar facts and issues must follow. And usually these cases are the first of their.

Kind, which kind of is what happened here.

Absolutely and like you said, high court decisions can't be appealed, so this basically is the definite end of a case like this.

And so in reality, what this means is that Australian workers, because of this High Court decision, now have grounds to sue for damages relating to a psychiatric injury after they're dismissed unfairly. And it's a really interesting one, a toll, because what often happens in these sorts of employment scenarios where something is tested for the first time in the court.

Yeah, and it's taken us quite a while to get there, But it will be interesting to see how kind of workplace lawyers kind of respond to this major decision made last week very interesting.

We're going to keep tabs on this story because I know this type of story really does have relevance to a lot of people who are in the workforce, particularly young people. A troll, thank you so much for taking us through that you passed your legal bar exam, Flying Colors, and thank you for joining us on the daily ours this morning. If you're listening to this podcast on Spotify or Apple, it would absolutely make our week. It was

My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda bunjelung Caalcuton woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and torrest Rate island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.