Agnes Waters Foodworks cleared over assistance dog discrimination claim

A small Qld supermarket landed in a legal stoush after a couple was banned for letting “assistance” dogs Boof and his two furry mates wander free.

The owner of the Agnes Waters Foodworks, who banned two shoppers for not leashing their assistance dogs in store, has been cleared of discrimination by the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

A regional Foodworks which banned two shoppers for not leashing their “assistance” dogs in store has been cleared of discrimination by the state’s administrative tribunal.

But the same watchdog said the three-year-long case could have been resolved without its intervention.

Published Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal documents reveal the Agnes Waters shop, and its manager had been accused of breaching the law over a ban on residents Jamie and Jodey Hope.

The Hopes claimed they had been asked by the shop's owner, Danianarnie Pty Ltd, and its manager, Michelle Irvine, for proof of their need for “assistance” dogs “Boof”, “Chevy” and “Oakey”, and told they could not enter the store with the pets off their leashes.

The tribunal heard Mr Hope suffered from a number of “mental health and physical impairments” which followed from four years of Army service as a combat engineer.

These included “no fewer than 18 physical, soft tissue, mental health and other significant impairments and critically, an adjustment disorder with depressed mood in respect of which his assistance dog is critical”.

The owner of the Agnes Waters Foodworks, who banned two shoppers for not leashing their assistance dogs in store, has been cleared of discrimination by the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

Mrs Hope had “some 10 painful and troubling medical conditions”, the decision said.

The stoush over the dogs started in April 2020 when the Foodworks asked for proof the Hopes’ animals were assistance dogs.

Ms Irvine told the tribunal the Assistance Dogs Association had advised the business was within its legal rights to ask, the tribunal was told.

Subsequent requests were made to the Hopes, who by January 2021 had started coming into the store with three dogs, all on leads.

In November 2021 Ms Irvine tried to reach a compromise limiting them to two dogs as “it was hazardous for other customers and staff because three dogs, two adults and a shopping trolley made it impossible for staff and customers to move through the store making it a workplace health and safety issue”, the decision said.

For the next year the Hopes shopped at the store with no more than two dogs, both on leads, until August 2022 when Mrs Hope first removed the lead of her dog while in the shop and then refused a request to reattach it, instead threatening to sue the shop.

The tribunal heard they returned on two more occasions with their dogs off-leash, refusing requests to put the lead on, and in September 2022 they were banned from the Foodworks.

Tribunal member Peter Roney found the Hopes failed to show their decisions to not keep the dogs leashed in the shop “was anything but their own decision, done as a form of protest at what they considered to be an imposition on their rights to use their assistance dogs without interference in any way”.

The Hopes then took the shop and Ms Irvine to QCAT alleging direct and indirect discrimination.

These claims were rejected by the tribunal on July 7 which found the ban was not based on any of the Hopes’ impairments or protected attributes but rather “on the basis that they were challenging the authority of the respondents and were trying to disrupt the respondents’ management of the store as they saw fit”.

Tribunal member Peter Roney found the Hopes failed to show their decisions to not keep the dogs leashed in the shop “was anything but their own decision, done as a form of protest at what they considered to be an imposition on their rights to use their assistance dogs without interference in any way”.

Mr Roney accepted the dogs might need to be off lead at times to find their owner’s partner in case of an emergency but was not persuaded “this was the reason they were off leash on the two days in question which led to the banning”.

He said each of the Hopes had given evidence they did so to exercise what they thought were their rights.

“Indeed, the evidence … is that the conduct of both applicants in bringing the dogs in off leash was for the purpose of mounting a challenge to the directive that they do so, not to engage in a dog training exercise,” Mr Roney said.

He dismissed the Hopes claims but lamented things had ever reached the point they did.

“It seems to me, that this is a matter that could well have been successfully managed to a resolution of it without the necessity to engage the resources of the tribunal, to the extent that they have been,” he said.

Originally published as Agnes Waters Foodworks cleared over assistance dog discrimination claim