Shanahan v Australian Industrial Relations Commission (No 2)

The case of Shanahan v Australian Industrial Relations Commission (No 2) involved the applicant, who was employed as an academic and dismissed from his position after allegations of misconduct, specifically instances of physical contact with students. The applicant appealed the dismissal decision to the Full Bench of the Commission. The primary legal issue was whether the Senior Deputy President of the Commission erred in the weight given to certain medical evidence and the reasons provided for that decision. The Full Bench found that the Senior Deputy President had indeed erred by not appropriately weighing the medical evidence and providing insufficient reasons for doing so.

The Full Bench of the Commission, comprising Senior Deputy President Hamberger and Commissioner Raffaelli, examined the grounds of appeal submitted by the applicant, focusing particularly on Ground 7. They identified that Senior Deputy President Cartwright had failed to adequately consider the medical evidence of Dr Teoh, which was crucial in understanding the applicant's conduct and its context. The Full Bench emphasised that Senior Deputy President Cartwright's decision to undervalue Dr Teoh's evidence was not based on reasonable grounds and did not align with the principles set out in House v The King. The majority concluded that the error in assessing the medical evidence constituted a failure to meet the standards of procedural fairness, thus impacting the overall fairness of the decision-making process.

The Full Bench's decision to uphold the error in the weight given to Dr Teoh's evidence led to the conclusion that the original decision needed to be reconsidered. Consequently, the Full Bench ordered that the application for an order to show cause be dismissed, indicating that the procedural error warranted a re-evaluation of the dismissal decision.