The medical certificate named two people - that detail set off a misconduct probe
A worker resigned after his employer questioned his medical certificate. The Fair Work Commission ruled he was not forced out.
The case, decided on August 28, 2026, turned on a narrow but common question for employers: when a worker quits after a misconduct investigation, was it really the employer that ended the job?
The worker, a field technician supervisor employed by Hills Health Pty Ltd since 2015, took leave in October 2025 and lodged a handwritten medical certificate through the company's payroll app. Two managers were uneasy about it. The certificate was issued in two people's names - his and his wife's - and it did not clearly identify the doctor.
The company's people and culture manager emailed Prince of Wales Private Hospital to check whether the certificate was genuine. When the hospital said the worker did not appear in its records, the company sent him a formal letter alleging serious misconduct through suspected falsification of the certificate, and opened an investigation.
There was an innocent explanation for the gap. The worker was never the patient. His four-year-old daughter had surgery to remove her tonsils and adenoids, and the leave was to care for her. But he did not tell his employer that until November 11, 2025 - after his wife, and then he himself, had described the absence as his own illness.
Once he explained, the company moved quickly. It accepted his account as plausible, decided there was not enough evidence to support the allegation, and told him on November 13, 2025 that the matter was closed with no further action. A manager then welcomed him back to work.
He did not return. On November 24, 2025 he resigned, effective immediately. He had taken a video call with a competitor's general manager on the same day, had a job offer three days later, and started with that competitor in December.
The worker argued he had been forced to resign - a claim sometimes called constructive dismissal - under section 386 of the Fair Work Act. The Commission disagreed. Applying a test from an earlier full-bench ruling known as Bupa, it asked whether the employer intended to end the employment, or whether resignation was the probable result of its conduct, leaving the worker with no real choice.
Neither was made out. The Commission found the investigation was a genuine attempt to check a certificate the managers considered suspicious, not a move to push the worker out. It noted that the company dropped the allegation two days after reviewing his response, and that a manager had welcomed him back - not the behaviour of an employer trying to end the job.
Because it found the worker had not been dismissed, the Commission dismissed his unfair dismissal application. It never reached the separate question of whether a dismissal, had there been one, would have been unfair.
The Commission also observed that the worker was not without blame. Had he explained from the start that the leave was to care for his daughter, it said, the allegation might never have been raised.
For HR teams, the practical signals are direct. A misconduct investigation - even one opened with a formal allegation letter - does not amount to a forced resignation where the process is fair, the worker gets a real chance to respond, the allegation is dropped once the explanation lands, and the employer makes clear it wants the person to stay. The company's quick closure of the allegation, and its written invitation to return, were central to that outcome.
