A co-founder shared her pregnancy news. She quit. Why the tribunal still backed the company
A software firm disclosed a worker's pregnancy without consent - and still beat her claim that it forced her out.
An Australian tech company has defeated a claim that it forced a pregnant employee to resign, even as the Fair Work Commission criticised one of its co-founders for sharing her pregnancy without consent and giving unreliable evidence about it.
In a decision dated June 4, 2026, Commissioner Sloan dismissed the case against Zitcha Pty Ltd and three named individuals, finding the employee resigned voluntarily and so could not bring the claim at all.
The dispute hinged on a question that lands on HR desks regularly: when is a resignation really a dismissal? Under the Fair Work Act 2009, this kind of claim only works if the person was "dismissed" - either the employer ended the job, or the worker resigned but was "forced" to by the employer's conduct. Zitcha said neither happened.
The facts, drawn from the decision, are stark. The employee joined the software firm in October 2024. She became pregnant around September 2025 and had a history of severe hyperemesis gravidarum - a condition causing extreme nausea and vomiting - from an earlier pregnancy. She told two co-founders early, including her manager, Troy Townsend, so the company could plan for possible leave. She stressed she was "not telling everyone."
After she was signed off work for eight weeks, Townsend told a colleague that she was pregnant and unwell. The employee, on learning of it, texted that she was "a bit shocked he's told you."
On medical advice, she terminated the pregnancy on November 6, 2025. The next day she resigned by email, saying she needed to "focus on my health and family above all else." Co-founder Jack Byrne accepted the resignation and wished her well.
She later argued she had been forced out. According to her case, Townsend showed "palpable hostility," shared her "personal, highly sensitive medical information" without consent, and the thought of explaining her pregnancy loss to colleagues posed "a serious and imminent risk" to her health.
The Commission accepted the disclosure to the colleague happened and was critical of Townsend's evidence about it, calling his account "wholly unconvincing" and saying it "calls his credibility into question." The Commissioner also accepted that "a reasonable person in the circumstances would have been greatly upset at any disclosure of her pregnancy, even if only to one other employee."
Even so, the claim failed on jurisdiction. The Commissioner found the resignation email used "unequivocal words of resignation," that the employee was capable of making the decision, that she "did in fact intend to resign," and never tried to take it back. The real trigger, the decision found, was the pregnancy termination and the fear of explaining it at work - something the employer did not know about when the disclosure was made.
The Commissioner also addressed the employee's claim that the company seized on her resignation to avoid paying maternity leave or making her redundant. A message from Byrne to Townsend after learning of the pregnancy - "Well fuck. That makes things really spicy" - was noted, but the Commissioner found a wider redundancy review was underway, no decision had been made about her role, and the argument "did not rise much above assertion."
For HR, the win is narrower than it looks. A manager disclosed a confidential early-stage pregnancy, then gave evidence the Commission found unconvincing - and that finding is now on the public record. Treat pregnancy and medical details as confidential by default, and share them only with consent or clear necessity. Train managers to handle sensitive disclosures with care, since a curt reply can read as hostility even when none is intended. And remember that a clear, considered resignation is usually treated as voluntary - but genuine signs of distress can put an employer on notice to confirm the person really means to go before accepting it.
