Medical certificate cleared her to work elsewhere — but did that end the job?
When is an employee not dismissed? The Fair Work Commission has a clear answer — and a useful warning for HR teams managing long-term leave.
In a decision handed down on 5 May 2026, the Fair Work Commission dismissed an unfair dismissal application from a long-serving church employee who insisted her employer had ended her job — even as the employer kept telling her, in writing, that she was still on the books.
The case, Ai-Lin Annette Broughton v Hobart City Church of Christ Inc., turns on an increasingly familiar HR puzzle: what happens when an employee is medically certified as unable to return to their current workplace, but cleared to work somewhere else?
How the dispute unfolded
Mrs Broughton had worked for the Hobart City Church of Christ since November 2018, eventually splitting her time across operations, ministry and finance duties. In 2022, she disclosed a diagnosis of generalised anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder to the Church.
Things began to fray in April 2025 after what she said was her first performance review in six years. She told the Commission she found the meeting belittling and intimidating, and alleged that two Church leaders suggested during the review that she "should feel free to seek employment elsewhere and did not need to feel a sense of loyalty" to the Church.
Two months later, the Church asked her to sign a new contract that would reclassify her pay downward and flagged that she had been overpaid. She replied with a five-page letter outlining concerns about pay misclassification, the overpayment claim, and job security — then went on personal leave. Her last day at work was 26 June 2025.
Mediation in July and August failed. From mid-September 2025, her workers' compensation certificates of capacity stated she was not suitable to return to working for the Church, but was cleared for part-time work with a different employer.
Why the Commission said there was no dismissal
Commissioner Tran was unpersuaded that anything the Church did amounted to a dismissal. The Church had repeatedly confirmed — on 1 August, 19 October, 17 November, 26 November and 27 November 2025 — that Mrs Broughton remained employed. It had not asked her to resign, had not ended her job, and was simply accepting the medical advice in front of it.
The Commissioner observed that the Church had "behaved in the only way it can." Requiring an employee to return to work against medical advice would not be appropriate, she said, and accepting that advice did not force a resignation.
Evidence that a mediator had told the applicant's husband the Church "hoped" she would resign was set aside as hearsay — and, even taken at its highest, showed only a hope, not conduct that pushed her out the door.
The takeaway for HR
The decision is a quiet but useful one for HR leaders. It confirms that accepting a certificate of capacity recommending work elsewhere does not, on its own, end the employment relationship. It also rewards employers who put their position in writing — repeatedly and clearly — when an employee on extended leave begins to question their status.
And it is a reminder that what gets said in a performance review can echo for years.
