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A Fair Work Commissioner applied the wrong principles when he found an employer had no reason to question whether a resignation, tendered during a paranoid delusion, was freely given.

As a result, an appeal bench has ordered Commissioner Damian Sloan to redetermine whether the employee's unfair dismissal claim can proceed.

The stevedore employee was appealing a decision from March 2025, in which Commissioner Sloan upheld Hutchison Ports' jurisdictional objection to his claim on the basis that he had voluntarily resigned.

The employee contended he was suffering from paranoid delusions at the time and didn't recall resigning by email at 4:31am. He said he only became aware of his actions after waking up after 11am and seeing the employer had accepted the resignation minutes earlier...