Cairns Regional Council appeals damning $1.1m Paul Ackers workplace negligence finding

A Former Cairns Regional Council employee who was awarded $1.1m in damages after a court found the organisation was responsible for causing his psychiatric injury has had his payday put on hold.

A FORMER Cairns Regional Council employee who was awarded $1.1m in damages after a court found the organisation was responsible for causing his psychiatric injury has had his payday put on hold after the council appealed the damning decision.

Supreme Court Justice Jim Henry awarded former council payroll supervisor Paul Andrew Ackers $1.1m in damages in December 2021.

Former Cairns Regional Council payroll supervisor Paul Ackers. Picture: LinkedIn

Justice Henry found the council was negligent and had breached its duty of care to Mr Ackers, causing his major depressive illness after he worked excessive hours in an understaffed unit before being targeted with a performance management plan by then chief financial officer (and later CEO) John Andrejic.

Mr Ackers was eventually stood down in September 2015 on a combination of medical grounds and there being no improvement in his performance.

He has not worked since.

The council is now challenging the decision in the Court of Appeal in Brisbane, arguing that Justice Henry erred and asking for the judgment be set aside and the proceeding be dismissed, with costs.

The council is arguing Justice Henry erred in finding that the council’s duty to avoid a risk of psychiatric injury extended to the exercise of the council’s contractual rights, and that extension was inconsistent with industrial relations law.

Former Cairns Regional Council CEO John Andrejic. Picture: Stewart McLean

Justice Henry also found that the performance management plan Mr Ackers was placed on was not entered into in good faith, nor was it a genuine exercise of a contractual right to require competent performance.

The council contends that Justice Henry erred in making those findings, and that even if he did not, that was a matter for the law of industrial relations and not for the law as found by the court.

“Having held that there was a bona fide corporate interest in addressing the matters in the performance management plan, namely the mistakes which were being made in the payroll department, His Honour ought to have found … placing (Mr Ackers) on a Performance Improvement Action Plan was an exercise of (the council’s) contractual rights and did not give rise to a duty to take reasonable care for (Mr Ackers’) psychiatric health”.

Mr Ackers said it was disappointing he was unable to put the matter behind him, despite Justice Henry finding in his favour in December following a lengthy trial.

“All I can do is hope that justice will prevail,” he said.

Slater and Gordon lawyer Nicola Thompson said her firm had been served by the council’s solicitors with a notice of appeal seeking to have the Supreme Court judgment overturned.

“We will be filing our response with the court soon.”

Originally published as Cairns Regional Council appeals damning $1.1m Paul Ackers workplace negligence finding