The High Court will deliver judgment Wednesday in an appeal by Qantas over its decision to sack its ground crew at the height of COVID-19, a ruling that could determine the scope of adverse action protections under the Fair Work Act.
If Qantas triumphs in its High Court appeal of a ruling that found it violated the Fair Work Act when it outsourced ground crew at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, it would create a “whack-a-mole” legal right to terminate disadvantaged people, the Transport Workers Union has argued.
The NSW government has struck back at a class action over allegedly unlawful police strip searches at 50 music festivals, saying the state is immune from personal injury claims because police officers had a reasonable suspicion group members were in possession of illegal drugs.
The NSW government will move to de-class a representative proceeding over police strip searches at 50 music festivals, after a judge cast doubt on whether the case should be run as a class action.
A judge has cast doubt on whether a class action against the state of NSW over police strip searches at 50 music festivals should be run as a representative proceeding, telling the state to decide whether to file a de-classing application “sooner rather than later”.
Qantas has asked the High Court to reverse a judgment that found it violated the Fair Work Act by axing 1,800 ground staff partly to prevent them from bringing industrial action.
A decision by Qantas to outsource its ground staff was not timed to head off industrial action by the Transport Workers’ Union, the Full Federal Court has heard as the airline seeks to overturn a finding that it engaged in adverse action when it terminated around 1,800 employees last year.
An appeals court has dismissed a second attempt by Meta and Instagram to shut down a misuse of market power case by a Melbourne-based social media startup.
A court has shut down Facebook’s renewed push to cut off Melbourne-based content strategists Sked Social from posting on Instagram on behalf of its clients, with a judge saying the social media giant’s justification for varying the injunction order was “flimsy and possibly strategic”.
The Full Federal Court has found that Liberty Mutual Insurance, but not QBE, is required to cover Icon Construction’s losses stemming from the Opal Tower disaster, which has caused the builder $31 million in losses.