The woman, who had no prior disciplinary history, was employed at Murray Cod Limited for seven months before being fired. Photo: Aquna Sustainable Murray Cod/Facebook.
A Riverina company didn’t properly prove an employee was responsible for damage to a company car before it fired her over the allegation, according to a Fair Work Commission (FWC) ruling.
The recently published decision reveals the employee joined Murray Cod Australia Limited as a senior aquaculture technician in April 2025.
She’d worked for the company for seven months at its Stanbridge site (near Leeton), before being summarily dismissed over claims of serious misconduct relating to damage to a company vehicle.
Her employer had alleged that the ute was damaged while she was using it in her work duties and that she failed to report it.
FWC deputy president Lyndall Dean found that the company’s underlying allegation couldn’t be proved and her dismissal was unreasonable and ultimately, unfair.
“The respondent did not take steps to otherwise check whether the vehicle may have already been damaged [before the woman used it],” she said.
At about 2 pm on 30 October, the site manager asked the woman if she knew how the ute was damaged, and sent her photographs of it.
In response, the woman texted, “Oh. I don’t know. No-one has reported anything to me.”
A formal meeting was held on 4 November 2025 between the woman and two other employees.
“At the meeting, the applicant was told that the [CCTV] footage established that the vehicle was undamaged before the applicant used it, that the applicant had sole possession of the vehicle during the relevant period, and that damage was observed after the vehicle was returned,” deputy president Dean said.
Representatives for the company later told an FWC hearing they had carried out an “evidence-based investigation” and that they gave the woman chances to respond to the allegations against her before they dismissed her.
“[The company] says that based upon the CCTV footage, GPS records and the applicant’s changing explanations, management formed the reasonable belief that the applicant either knew, or ought reasonably to have known, that damage had occurred and failed to report the incident as required under her contractual obligations and workplace health and safety obligations,” FWC deputy president Dean said.
But the woman told her then colleagues there was no corroborating evidence that she was responsible for the dent and denied she had caused it.
According to the decision, the woman also denies a claim that she asked if she would be “fired for my dishonesty” during that meeting.
The following day, she was summarily dismissed with immediate effect.
Deputy president Dean ultimately sided with the woman, finding there wasn’t enough evidence to prove she was responsible.
“The applicant stated that she only became aware of the vehicle damage when contacted by management and maintained that she did not recall striking anything,” she said.
“She stated that if an impact had occurred, she would have expected to notice or hear it.”
She pointed to the woman’s evidence to the commission, where she stated that she only left the vehicle for about 30 minutes to work on a paddle wheel and didn’t see anyone else near the ute.
“So when I picked up the vehicle, I reversed back to where the containers are. I grabbed some tools to be used … I drove to the pond, which is less than two minutes to drive there,” she is quoted as saying.
“I parked, I left the car. I brought the kayak down, … tried to fix the paddle wheel. … I drove back first to the container to bring back all the tools and the kayak back in the container and then parked the car and left from that.”
Deputy president Dean also took aim at the CCTV footage that the company claimed showed it was undamaged before the woman used it on 30 October.
In her decision, she said the angle of the sun and the distance from the camera to the vehicle meant it didn’t clearly show whether the vehicle was undamaged when the woman started using it.
“The respondent did not take steps to otherwise check whether the vehicle may have been already been damaged,” she added.
“In this regard, another employee washed the vehicle just prior to the applicant using it … There were no pre-inspection reports or the like, and the applicant did not inspect the vehicle prior to driving it.”
She ordered that the woman, who has since been hired by another company, be paid four weeks’ pay as compensation.
Gary Delpiano exactly! I’m happy to pay for my meal and drinks, but I have no desire to pay for… View