Bullied teacher awarded compensation for nervous breakdown, Education Department wants it overturned

A female teacher tormented mercilessly by her primary school students was awarded compensation after a breakdown — now the Education Department has asked the state’s highest court to cancel the payment. 

A teacher who had a nervous breakdown after out-of-control students threatened to kill her is at the centre of a Supreme Court test case, as the Education Department fights to have her compensation overturned.

The department’s pending appeal could have major implications for the way psychological injuries, particularly those experienced by teachers in the classroom, are compensated.

The South Australian Law Society says the case is an example of the systemic discrimination faced by workers who suffer psychiatric injuries.

The South Australian Employment Tribunal awarded the 46-year-old teacher, who had more than 15 years’ experience, unspecified compensation in November last year after a nervous breakdown resulted in her wanting the world to end.

In submissions to the tribunal, the teacher said the number of students with “complexities” – including traumatic backgrounds, anger management issues and autism spectrum disorder – had increased and left her drained at the end of the day and unable to sleep.

She said she felt incompetent and worried about helping students who wanted to learn.

During hearings last year, the tribunal heard that the teacher had worked in a tough classroom with students who had threatened to kill her and each other. She voluntarily entered mental-health treatment but said she was unable to return to the classroom because “the children are all violent and out of control”.

The teacher, who cannot be identified, suffered a nervous breakdown and was awarded compensation by the South Australian Employment Tribunal.

Lawyers for the Education Department argued that marital and financial stress had been a bigger cause of her breakdown than the difficult classroom.

The department tried unsuccessfully to appeal the decision to the full bench of the South Australian Employment Tribunal late last month.

A State Government spokesman said the department would now appeal that decision in the state’s highest court. The teacher’s lawyers said they were unaware of the pending appeal.

Law Society president Amy Nikolovski said the argument over compensation came down to interpreting the meaning of “significant contributing cause”.

A challenge could therefore hinge on the department convincing the Supreme Court that the classroom trauma was not as big a factor as a combination of other issues.

“The judicial officers on appeal determined that this question did not need to be answered, as they determined that the employment was the only significant contributing cause of the (teacher’s) injury,” Ms Nikolovski said.

“Therefore, the question as to the interpretation of ‘the significant contributing cause’, as raised by the department, has not been resolved. If the case goes to the Supreme Court, the court may provide clarity on the correct interpretation.”

Ms Nikolovski said there was discrimination against workers who suffered psychological injuries.

“The law has been written so that it is more difficult for a person with a psychiatric workplace injury to be compensated than it is for a person with a physical workplace injury,” she said.

Following the original hearings in June last year, tribunal deputy president Mark Calligeros said it was not surprising the teacher’s mental health had declined so sharply.