Log in or become a subscriber

It was unreasonable to recharacterise an incident after an investigation found an employee's conduct wasn't malicious or intentional, the Fair Work Commission has found in unfair dismissal proceedings.

Commissioner Chris Simpson also rejected the employer's reliance on previous incidents, and on the employee's undisclosed secondary employment, as justifications for its dismissal decision.

The maintenance engineer was working for aircraft maintenance company Heston MRO Pty Ltd prior to his summary dismissal in December last year.

The Commission heard that in the previous month, the employee was involved in an incident that shut down a client's aircraft for 17 minutes, and resulted in the client withdrawing his maintenance authority...