Frustration of an employment contract in circumstances of illness or injury "is a difficult concept to establish", a Fair Work Commissioner has noted, in clearing a worker to pursue his unfair dismissal claim.
A Fair Work Commission full bench has clarified when the end of a fixed-term contract might constitute a dismissal, finding that a conditional "promise" of ongoing employment wasn't a contractually binding offer.
An employer has failed to prove that it didn't dismiss a worker when it repeatedly refused her requests for part-time work after a period of parental leave.
A litigious employee has failed to convince the Federal Court that her employer breached her contract by rostering her for fewer hours than it had agreed to, back in 2023.
The "commensurate" positions an employer offered its workers because their roles were no longer required were in fact demotions that repudiated their employment contracts, the Fair Work Commission has found.
A court has awarded an employer $270k in damages after two of its employees left to establish their own business, in breach of their 12-month contractual restraints.
Some risk is unavoidable when engaging contingent workers, but certain steps can go a long way towards preventing regulator scrutiny and entitlement claims, a lawyer says.
Ensuring that clients can freely choose who they work with was a crucial point in a court decision that refused to grant an employer's request for an interlocutory restraint order covering its departing employees.
Simply "responding positively" to an approach from a former client doesn't amount to solicitation, a court has highlighted, in refusing to restrain an employee accused of breaching his employment contract.
A decision that found an employee was dismissed when her fixed-term contract was allowed to "meander to its conclusion" highlights the need for employers to "exercise caution" in this area, a lawyer stresses.
