An AI-generated submission, a 10:11pm reply from the boss, and an offer to stay if he left the site
A Toll manager says her boss told her to sack a team member or go herself. Her resignation email that night never mentioned it.
That gap proved telling. In a decision handed down on September 22, 2026, the Fair Work Commission dismissed her general protections claim, finding she had not been dismissed at all.
The distinction matters. Her claim could only go ahead if she had been dismissed, and under the Fair Work Act that includes a resignation an employer forces through its own conduct. The Commission found this resignation did not fit that description.
A purchase order sent to the wrong customer
The worker joined Toll Transport in September 2022 as a customer service and administration manager at its chemicals site in Laverton, leading a team of about five. She reported to the site manager, who oversees about 65 staff.
On June 3, 2025, one of her team members emailed a customer an incorrect purchase order containing another customer's details. The site manager forwarded the emails to the worker as an example of his concerns about her team. He wrote that this was its most experienced member, asked whether the team member had enough support and invited the worker's thoughts.
The emails went back and forth. He said there was a significant gap in quality and that a refocus and action plan was needed. She pushed back, at one point writing: "You are the last person who should be doing this but appreciate you doing this in my absence."
She thought the matter was settled. He did not.
"It's either her or you"
The next day they met again. No one else was in the room.
The site manager said the meeting was about customer escalations, team culture and staff retention. He said he raised options such as more staff or more training, and wanted to formalise his concerns about the team member's performance, which he said had been an issue for two years. The worker objected. He said she became "very defensive".
Her version, set out in a complaint she later emailed to HR, was starker. She recorded him saying she would be on performance management "in the next few weeks" if her team did not improve, and that "it's either her or you."
An outline of submissions she filed, which the Commission described as AI generated, put it another way: "If you don't get rid of her, I'll get rid of you."
The site manager denied using that phrase. He did not deny discussing what could happen to her if she did not act on his concerns, but said she had taken his comments out of context.
The Commission found both witnesses credible.
Resigned by 8:04pm
At 8:04pm that evening, she emailed her resignation. "This was an easy decision after the discussion you had with me today," she wrote. "I feel there's a way to treat people and it's obvious to me that our values don't align."
At 10:11pm, he replied: "if there is an opportunity to discuss this further, I would appreciate it". She did not respond.
He approached her again on each of the next two days. By her own account, on June 6 he checked whether resigning was really what she wanted, because he felt she had "overreacted". She told him it was.
She says she met HR the same day and told them she would like to stay at Toll but could no longer work with him. Her written complaint asked about a transfer to an executive assistant role on her current salary. It added that she would be happy to stay in her current job if the site manager "was no longer working at the site".
Then came the legal advice
On June 12, she asked HR for an update on withdrawing her resignation. HR replied that it did not believe she had resigned in the heat of the moment and would not accept the withdrawal.
A formal objection followed on June 17. In it, she said she did not accept her resignation "as valid or effective due to the stressful and pressured circumstances under which it was provided". On June 20, 2025, Toll told her the resignation had been formally accepted. She was not required to work out her notice and was paid for it instead.
The Commission found Toll was entitled to refuse. It said the worker had "changed the narrative to fit with the advice she obtained", with her change of mind coming around eight days after she resigned. It also found she had "misrepresented the facts" in her submissions about her attempts to withdraw the resignation, adding that this may have been due to her use of AI.
What the email didn't say
The Commission was not persuaded that the site manager intended, or actually conveyed, a straight choice between sacking the team member and losing her own job.
It also tested the worker's own record of the meeting. Setting aside the disputed comment, it found that even on her account, his response was "reasonable management action conducted in a reasonable way".
Her record, it said, pointed to a different message: she needed to act on her team's and the team member's performance, or he would have to address hers. That was something he was trying to avoid by reaching a mutually agreed solution.
Then there was the resignation email. The Commission described the worker as "very forthright" at the hearing, calling it a strength of character rather than a criticism. If she had really been told she would be got rid of, it reasoned, she would have said so when she resigned.
It also found that the site manager's actions after the meeting, including his prompt attempts to clear up any misunderstanding, were inconsistent with her claim that his main aim was to get rid of the team member or her.
She had other options, the Commission said. She could have talked through his concerns, put a plan or performance improvement plan in place, or raised the issue with HR before resigning.
Emails she gathered from two former employees did not help. The Commission upheld Toll's objection to them, noting they were untested and did not concern her. It gave little weight to an email from the team member herself, finding it simply repeated the worker's opinion. That team member was still working at Toll.
The Commission added that it is "not unusual or uncommon" for staff whose performance is being questioned or managed to complain, even where the performance management is warranted.
Because the worker, who represented herself, had not been dismissed, the Commission had no power to hear her claim. Her application was dismissed.
For HR teams, the case shows how much weight a resignation email, and a manager's same-night reply, can carry when a forced resignation claim rests on a meeting no one else witnessed.
