No letter, no meeting - just a roster that quietly went dark, then bit back
She was never told she was fired - her booking app simply went dark, and the Commission called that a dismissal.
In a decision handed down in Brisbane on June 2, 2026, the Fair Work Commission found that switching off a casual worker's access to her rostering platform was enough to end her employment - no termination letter, no meeting, no word said out loud.
The case involved Celestine Cooley-Cartan, a casual therapist at Lanspagroup Pty Ltd, which runs day spas in Surfers Paradise and Tweed Heads. Her shifts ran through a booking system called Fresha, where therapists viewed bookings, checked hours, and confirmed work.
She resigned in September 2025, then began a new casual arrangement in December. By early January, her bookings were vanishing. The decision says existing bookings were reassigned to other therapists, and at one point a client who asked for her by name was handed to someone else.
Then came a one-minute phone call. The company's director told her room availability was tight and the busy season was winding down, so shifts might be limited, according to the decision. Cooley-Cartan says nothing was said about ending her work - but right afterward, her Fresha availability was shut off.
When she asked why, the decision records the director's reply: "this is not a termination of your employment, we just don't have many bookings to offer at the moment." She asked only that her roster stay open so she could pick up shifts if any appeared.
Instead, her Fresha access was fully revoked and she was removed from the workplace group chat. She lodged a general protections application. The decision records the assistant manager texting that, since she had filed a Fair Work dispute, "we are assuming that you do not have the intention to work with us at this time." Around the same time, the decision notes, the director posted in the group chat asking who could work that Friday, saying the business "needed two therapists."
Lanspa's defence was simple: she was a casual, casuals get no guaranteed work, and business was slow. The Commissioner rejected it. Being casual, the decision says, is not a loophole that puts casuals beyond dismissal - it just means there is no expectation of continuing work.
The downturn argument did not hold either. Lanspa relied on general assertions about a quiet period but offered no direct evidence, while Cooley-Cartan pointed to work being reallocated and the business seeking other therapists at times she was free. Removing her from Fresha and the group chat, the Commissioner found, was not merely "administrative" - it was deliberate conduct intended to bring the employment relationship to an end.
The Commissioner also flagged an inconsistency: at the hearing, the assistant manager's evidence confirmed that Cooley-Cartan having lodged her Commission application was a factor in the decision to offer her no further shifts.
Drawing on authorities including Mohazab v Dick Smith Electronics and Bupa Aged Care v Tavassoli, the legal test asks whether the employer's action was the principal contributing factor ending the employment relationship - not the contract. It was, the Commissioner held: had Lanspa left her access alone, she would have remained employed.
The jurisdictional objection was dismissed, and Cooley-Cartan was found to have been dismissed within the meaning of s.386 of the Fair Work Act 2009. The Commission made no finding on why she was dismissed; that question, and her broader general protections claim, now moves to a conference under s.368.
For HR leaders, the takeaways are blunt. Cutting system access, removing someone from communication channels, or quietly emptying a roster can amount to dismissal even when nobody says "you're terminated" - and casual status is no shield. Acting against a worker because they raised a complaint, meanwhile, is the precise conduct that fuels a general protections claim.
