In January 2013, we published a legal update regarding the case
of Beauty and the Geek contestant Adam Marshall, who made
an adverse action claim against his employer, the Bureau of
Meteorology.
He claimed that he had exercised a "workplace right",
being an entitlement under an enterprise agreement to take leave
when medically unfit. The Federal Magistrates Court (now known as
the Federal Circuit Court) accepted that this was a workplace right
for the purposes of an adverse action claim.
In the recent case of Daw v Schneider Electric (Australia)
Pty Ltd [2013] FCCA 1341, Mr Daw tried to stretch the
definition of "workplace right" further.
Mr Daw claimed that his employment was terminated for refusing
his employer's request to carry out an act that was either
illegal or, if not illegal, not reasonable in all the
circumstances. He had been asked to do professional engineering
services work , as defined in the Professional Engineers Act
2002 (Qld), in circumstances
