High school tuck shop lady in Christmas cake legal battle with Education Department

A canteen lady has taken a legal stand against the Education Department, claiming she suffered an acute stress reaction over a Christmas fruit cake debacle. WHAT HAPPENED>>>

A high school canteen supervisor is taking action against the Department of Education, claiming she was wrongly accused of fraud by using a corporate credit card to buy ingredients to make Christmas fruit cakes, then buying the cakes herself.

The employee lodged a workers compensation claim for an adjustment disorder, or an acute stress reaction, after she claimed the school made a finding of fraud against her “without any form of investigation or due process”.

In its newly published decision, the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal said it had heard the woman purchased bags of mixed dried fruit, using a corporate credit card, to make Christmas cakes at the school with milk that would otherwise have been wasted.

The worker said one cake was purchased by a teacher who had a diabetic husband, and the worker herself bought the other three cakes.

A school canteen worker say she has been accused of fraud over some Christmas cakes she made.

She said it was alleged she made the cakes for financial advantage, but “this was not the case, and that she had put money back in the till herself and in fact had contributed more money to the till than the dried fruit had cost”.

The worker, who said she was told she’d breached the school’s code of conduct by deriving a financial benefit, said she couldn’t see an issue with selling goods she made in the canteen to herself.

“(The worker) said that this was ridiculous as the money had gone back into school. Ingredients had cost $43 and the cakes had sold for $65.”

She said she was not given the opportunity to respond before a finding of fraud was made, and that she was bullied and harassed by the school’s business manager.

After a meeting at the school in December last year, the employee was certified to be incapacitated for work until February this year.

A psychiatrist diagnosed her as having suffered an adjustment disorder with mixed anxiety and low mood after receiving a letter accusing her of fraudulent behaviour.

The school’s business manager said neither he or the principal accused the worker of misconduct or harassed her “in any way”.

Tribunal senior member Lucinda Jack approved the worker’s request for her lawyer to cross-examine the school’s witness at an upcoming hearing.

The hearing itself will be held on a date to be fixed.

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