The victim received the highest award for a sexual harassment claim in Australia's history
The Redfern Legal Centre has helped a victim of sexual harassment to a win in Federal Court.
The court awarded $305,000 in damages to the victim, a young female international student who filed a claim of sexual harassment, victimisation and aggravated damages. This amount included $160,000 in general damages – according to the Redfern Legal Centre, this is the highest award for a sexual harassment claim on record in Australia’s history.
“This landmark decision should act as a warning to employers: if you tolerate sexist workplace cultures, target vulnerable workers for sexual harassment, or threaten defamation proceedings against employees who speak up about sexual harassment, you will face the most serious consequences”, Redfern Legal Centre senior solicitor Seri Feldman-Gubbay said.
The victim experienced the harassment while working at a fast-food franchise at the age of 22. Following her exit from the job, she could not work for two and a half years; moreover, as an international student, she did not qualify for income support. The centre helped the victim to file her case in court.
The Federal Court determined that not only was the victim sexually harassed, she was also threatened with a defamation suit. The court described the conduct of the employer’s defence as “offensive, scandalous and reliant on outdated and inappropriate assumptions about how individuals respond to sexual harassment in the workplace”, the Redfern Legal Centre said in a media release. This conduct resulted in the court awarding aggravated damages to the victim.
The decision underscored the critical role of community legal centres in providing access to justice, the centre added.
“Our client, an international student with no income, would have had no viable path to justice without the support of a community legal centre and pro bono counsel. Despite legal intimidation at every step of this proceeding, our client persisted”, Feldman-Gubbay said. “Funding community legal centres ensures that those who are often without a voice in the legal system are not only given a voice, but also a megaphone”.
The Grata Fund financed the Redfern Legal Centre’s work on this case.
“This decision sends a clear warning to perpetrators who seek to use defamation laws to threaten and silence victim-survivors. Victim-survivors face significant barriers to justice, but this case shows that this is slowly changing”, said Grata Fund board director Jennifer Robinson, who is also a human rights lawyer and barrister.
Last year, the Grata Fund helped secure a costs model that eliminated the risk of having to finance the costs of the other party.
