Fair work finds a dismissal but rejects the worker's late claim

A wine company thought its national sales manager had quit in a frustrated group chat message. Fair Work disagreed. 

In a decision handed down on June 25, 2026, the Fair Work Commission found that Grandeur Wines Pty Ltd, which trades as Elysian Springs, had dismissed its national sales and distribution manager - even though the company had argued he resigned. The finding, though, changed nothing for the worker: his claim was thrown out because he filed it months too late. 

The dispute began in a group chat. The manager, who said he had helped build the business and had hit a point of "severe work-related stress" amid a falling-out among the company's directors, wrote on January 29, 2025: "Manish please take this as notice - I will be tendering my resignation tomorrow effective end of February." He later said he had meant to send it to one person only, that his manager talked him into staying, and that he never followed through with a formal resignation. 

The company saw it differently. Over the following weeks it treated the message as a resignation. In an email of March 3, 2025, it said it accepted his resignation and asked him not to "attempt to return to work at Elysian Springs." A day later, it told him his employment would "conclude effective 28th February 2025." The directors had already settled the question among themselves, voting "2 to 1 in favour of letting [him] go." 

The Commissioner was not convinced any of this amounted to a resignation. The manager had floated a possible intention to quit the next day, then behaved the opposite way - repeatedly asking for a copy of a resignation letter he had never written. By purporting to accept a resignation that had not been given, the Commissioner held, the employer ended the employment on its own initiative. The dismissal was dated March 4, 2025, and the company's "he resigned" objection failed. 

That win, however, went nowhere. General protections dismissal claims must be filed within 21 days. The manager lodged his on August 15, 2025 - 164 days after the dismissal and 143 days past the deadline. He asked for an extension, pointing to settlement talks in separate Supreme Court proceedings between the parties' related companies. 

The Commissioner refused. Waiting on another court's process was not out of the ordinary, she found, particularly for someone who had a solicitor available throughout. The real reason for the delay was that the manager was "not aware of relevant time limits" - and ignorance of the 21-day deadline has long been held not to justify an extension. With no valid reason for the delay, there were no exceptional circumstances, and the application was dismissed. 

Importantly, the Commissioner made no finding on whether the dismissal was unlawful. That question - the heart of a general protections claim - was never tested, because the case ended on the time limit. 

For HR, the decision carries two clear lessons. First, a message venting about maybe quitting is not a resignation. The Commissioner looked for clear, unequivocal words showing an intention to end the job and did not find them. An employer that rushes to "accept" an ambiguous resignation can find its own conduct treated as the real reason the employment ended. Second, deadlines are unforgiving. Even a worker who succeeds on the threshold question can be shut out entirely by filing late, and not knowing the clock is ticking is no excuse.