No policy, no training, no defence. The judge says the word "all" carries real weight
A Western Australian small business has been ordered to pay more than $125,000 after its sole director sexually harassed a 20-year-old trainee on her fifth shift.
The decision, handed down by Judge Liveris on 21 May 2026 in Wood v Kendall [2026] FedCFamC2G 889, is the kind of judgment HR leaders will want to circulate to every line manager and owner-operator they advise. It sets out, in plain terms, what can happen when a workplace runs without policies, without training, and without anyone treating sexual harassment as a real risk.
The applicant, Caitlin Wood, had been referred to Hearns Hearth House in Midland by disability employment service Max Employment while receiving a disability support pension. On her first day, 14 May 2023, she told the director, Kevin Kendall, about her anxiety and OCD. Four days later, alone with him at work, she was asked about her sexual fantasies, had her hair touched, and was asked whether she would let him kiss her if they were dating, according to evidence accepted by the court. He also made a remark comparing the likelihood of them having sex to her chances of running the business. She left shortly after and never returned.
Judge Liveris found the conduct amounted to sexual harassment under section 28A of the Sex Discrimination Act, and held the company, Heating and Cooling Australia Pty Limited, vicariously liable.
For HR practitioners, the most useful part of the judgment is what the employer could not say in its defence, largely because it did not turn up. Wood gave evidence that she was never shown a workplace policy, never told what to do if something went wrong, and never briefed on sexual harassment at all. That left the company with nothing to point to when arguing it had taken "all reasonable steps" to prevent the conduct. As the judge noted, citing earlier Full Court authority, the word "all" in that defence does a lot of heavy lifting. Taking some steps is not enough.
The court also found both the director and the company had fallen short of the positive duty under section 47C, which requires employers to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate harassment before anything happens.
The damages tell their own story: $100,000 in general damages, $15,000 in aggravated damages, and $10,238.43 for economic loss. The aggravated component is the one worth dwelling on. It reflected the way Kendall and the company handled themselves after the complaint, including missed deadlines at the Australian Human Rights Commission, a no-show at court-referred mediation, and no response filed despite consent orders. The judge described their conduct across the proceedings as "improper, unjustifiable or lacking in bona fides."
The court accepted that Wood's pre-existing anxious and depressive symptoms were exacerbated by what happened, and that she was still feeling the effects more than two and a half years later.
The takeaway for HR is blunt. The positive duty does not scale with headcount, and how a business responds to a complaint can cost almost as much as the conduct itself.
