She Waited Two Years to Be Sacked. The Tribunal Said That Was Fine.

An employer sat on dishonesty findings against an employee for two years before dismissing her. She argued the delay alone proved the sacking was unfair. The South Australian Employment Tribunal disagreed, and its reasoning is worth every business owner’s time.

What actually happened?

A long-serving IT project officer with the South Australian police force brought two workers compensation claims for physical injuries. A court rejected both in 2020 and found she had been deliberately untruthful in her evidence, including withholding earlier symptoms linked to a private car trip. She was later ordered to pay the employer’s legal costs. She has always denied any dishonesty.

The employer used those court findings as the basis for a disciplinary process. It did not dismiss her until January 2023, almost three years after the court’s findings and around two years after it first knew about them.

She took the case to the South Australian Employment Tribunal, arguing the dismissal was unfair.

She lost. The decision, handed down on 30 July 2026, gives employers a genuinely useful roadmap for a situation that comes up more often than people think: what to do when misconduct surfaces somewhere other than your own workplace.

Can you dismiss someone based on findings from another court or tribunal?

Yes, and this case confirms it. The employer did not run its own dishonesty investigation from scratch. It relied on the court’s findings that the employee had lied in her compensation claims, treated that as a breach of the public sector code of ethics, and moved to discipline her on that basis.

The tribunal backed that approach. Where an independent decision-maker has already tested the evidence and made findings, an employer does not need to reinvent the wheel. You can adopt those findings and use them as the foundation for your own process.

This matters well beyond the public sector. If an employee has been found to have lied under oath, defrauded someone, or engaged in serious misconduct in a court, tribunal or other formal process, that finding can do real work for you. You still need your own fair process on top of it, but you are not starting from zero.

Does waiting two years to act make a dismissal unfair?

Not automatically, and this is the part that will make a lot of employers breathe out. The worker’s strongest argument was timing. The employer knew about the dishonesty findings in 2020 but did not suspend her until May 2022 and did not dismiss her until January 2023. She argued that keeping her employed for two years after the findings could not be squared with later treating her conduct as serious enough to sack her over.

The tribunal was not persuaded, because the delay had a clear explanation. There was an overlapping obligation to return her to suitable duties after an accepted psychological injury, a parallel redeployment process, waiting on legal advice, and a separate review into possible criminal charges. None of that was the employer dragging its feet for no reason.

Critically, the tribunal also found the delay caused her no real disadvantage. She kept working and kept being paid the whole time, and the delay did not damage her ability to respond to the allegations when they were finally put to her.

The lesson is not that delay is risk-free. It is that delay survives scrutiny when you can point to a genuine reason for it and show the employee was not worse off because of it. A two-year gap with no explanation is a very different case.

What about the departures from the employer’s own process?

The employee also argued the employer had not followed its own disciplinary procedure properly, including that a misconduct finding should have been stripped from an investigation report before it reached the final decision-maker, and that she should have been interviewed rather than asked to respond in writing.

The tribunal found there were some departures from internal policy. But it drew a clear line: not following your own guideline to the letter does not automatically make a dismissal unfair. What matters is whether the employee got the substance of a fair process, meaning clear notice of the allegations, a genuine opportunity to respond, and a decision made by someone independent of the investigation.

On the facts, she got all three, so the process gaps did not change the outcome.

What should employers take from this?

• Findings made elsewhere, in a court, tribunal or formal inquiry, can anchor your own disciplinary process. You do not always need to start a fresh investigation.
• Delay is not automatically fatal to a dismissal, but you need a genuine reason for it and you need to be able to show the employee was not disadvantaged by it.
• Minor departures from your own policy will not sink a dismissal if the employee still received fair notice, a real chance to respond, and an independent decision-maker.
• Document the reasons for any delay as you go. “We were waiting on legal advice” is a lot more convincing with a paper trail than as a claim made after the fact.

If you are sitting on a misconduct issue right now because something else is unresolved, a parallel claim, a police matter, a return-to-work plan, this case is a good reminder that waiting is not automatically unfair. Just make sure you know why you are waiting, and write it down.

FAQs

Can an employer rely on a court’s findings instead of investigating misconduct itself?
Generally, yes. If an independent decision-maker has already tested the evidence and made findings, an employer can adopt those findings rather than repeat the exercise. You still need to run a fair process around how you act on them.

Does a long delay between finding out about misconduct and dismissing someone make the dismissal unfair?
Not on its own. A delay needs a genuine explanation, and the employee needs to show they were not disadvantaged by it, such as lost income or an impaired ability to respond. Explained, non-prejudicial delay is unlikely to make a dismissal unfair by itself.

If we do not follow our own disciplinary policy to the letter, does that make a dismissal automatically unfair?
No. Tribunals look at whether the employee received the substance of procedural fairness: notice of the allegations, a genuine chance to respond, and an independent decision-maker. Minor process gaps that do not affect those core protections are unlikely to be fatal on their own.

What should we do if we are relying on findings from another process to discipline an employee?
Get advice before you act. You need to check the findings are sound enough to rely on, run your own fair process on top of them, and document your reasoning at every step, especially if there is going to be any delay.

Relying on findings from another forum, or sitting on a disciplinary issue while something else plays out, is exactly the kind of call that needs proper advice, not a guess. Talk to HR Gurus before you act. We cut through the BS and give you a risk-managed path forward.