The law of wrongful termination splits into unlawful and unfair dismissal. It is important to understand these laws as both and employer and employee. Wrongful termination is an umbrella term which covers a variety of different situations. The first type of these is unlawful dismissal which is where there is a dismissal as a result of the race, ethnicity, national original, religion, gender, disability, sex, age or other arbitrary aspect of a person’s character. This is unlawful in Australia under a range of legislation including the Age Discrimination Act 2004 (Cth), Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 (Cth), Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth), Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) and the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth). All of these pieces of legislation impose penalties on employers who dismiss employees as a result of an act where there is a dismissal on the basis of one of the grounds outlined here. This includes the concept of constructive dismissal which occurs when the employer makes the job of the employee so difficult to perform that it forces them to resign as a result of the discrimination being perpetrated and constitutes a repudiation of the terms of the contract between the employer and the employee.

The other major type of dismissal which can have legal implications is known as a unfair dismissal and in New South Wales, for example, unfair dismissal is defined as being a dismissal which is ‘harsh, unreasonable or unjust’. Obviously this is quite a broad concept and is usually determined with close reference to the facts of each particular matter. However, a distinctly unfair method or manner of dismissal is what will commonly lead to a determination on these grounds. If you would like more information about unfair or unlawful dismissal or believe that you have been wrongfully terminated or that you need to know how to avoid a claim of wrongful termination, please do not hesitate to fill in the contact form to the right.