He never signed anything, yet a court found he'd agreed to months of unpaid leave
An employee's own casual messages helped decide his claim for unpaid wages against law firm Dentons, which a court dismissed on July 27, 2026.
The Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia found the worker had agreed to an unpaid pandemic furlough even though no signed variation of his contract existed.
The man worked as a boardroom concierge in Dentons' Sydney office, starting in December 2019. When COVID-19 shut down in-person board meetings, his role could not be performed in the usual way. Rather than make him redundant, the firm offered furlough - a period of leave without pay - as the alternative.
He did no work between May 1, 2020 and January 10, 2021, then returned on January 11, 2021. He stayed on until he resigned, with a final day of March 25, 2022.
He later brought a small claim under the Fair Work Act, arguing he was owed $41,422.05 in wages for the furlough, plus $3,724.59 in leave and $3,935.09 in superannuation, together with interest. His main argument was a contract point. His agreement said any amendment had to be in writing and signed by both parties. No signed variation existed, so, he argued, the furlough could not stand and he should have been paid.
The court did not accept that. It found the furlough operated as a variation of the contract and that the employee had accepted it through his silence and conduct. His argument that the change was never put in writing did not help him, the court said, because the correspondence had given him a clear chance to reject the furlough at any time - and he never did.
The decisive evidence was largely the employee's own. The firm's proposals told staff that acceptance would be presumed if they did not respond by a deadline. He never rejected the first proposal or either extension. He asked the firm for a letter confirming the furlough so he could give it to his real estate agent. And he messaged a colleague: "accepted lol let's see what the next 2 months have in store for us." In a later message he wrote: "I did accept it."
The court relied on the principle that an employer can grant leave "as an indulgence," relieving a worker of duties outside any contract or statute, and that such leave is usually unpaid. Because it found no underpayment, the court said it did not need to decide which industrial award should have applied. The firm had also made a discretionary "pandemic recognition payment" of $14,900.50 for the unpaid period.
For HR teams, the ruling lands two clear signals. First, conduct and silence can vary a contract, even against a clause requiring written, signed amendments - provided the paper trail gives the employee a genuine chance to say no. Second, informal messages are evidence. A throwaway line to a colleague on an internal platform can end up as an annexure in a court file and help decide the result.
The process worked because of some unglamorous fundamentals. The firm set deadlines. It named the redundancy alternative. And it stated in writing that no response would be treated as acceptance. For anyone who ran stand-downs during the pandemic - or who may need to again - that combination is the takeaway.
