Background
Shelley Ritter sued Savills (Aust) Pty Ltd and Savills (WA) Pty Ltd under the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 (Cth), alleging sexual harassment, sex discrimination and victimisation during her employment from 2007 to 2019. Her detailed pleading identified alleged conduct principally involving a senior Savills employee, as well as other employees, and sought declarations, damages and costs.
Ritter raised detailed workplace grievances with Savills in 2019, later provided further material, and her solicitors sent a detailed claims letter in 2021. The parties participated in two private mediations before Ritter lodged an Australian Human Rights Commission complaint in February 2024. After its termination in May 2025, she commenced this Federal Court proceeding within the statutory 60-day period.
Savills applied for summary dismissal or a permanent stay, contending that the age of the allegations, unavailable former employees, a deceased employee, possible record gaps and the need for oral evidence meant a fair trial was no longer possible.
The Court’s Holding
Justice Colvin granted a permanent stay only of five pleaded claims: allegations 1, 2, 4 and 5, concerning alleged events between 2007 and 2011, and allegation 7, concerning an alleged 2012 event. The Court held that the more than 10-year gap between the earliest alleged conduct and Savills receiving notice of it in 2019 created a real likelihood of unfairness for those discrete claims. For the 2012 allegation, the relevant employee could not be located and Savills would be deprived of evidence from that person.
The Court otherwise dismissed Savills’ application. Savills had been on notice of the nature, seriousness and principal actors of Ritter’s claims from 2019 and was in a position to investigate them. It had also encouraged Ritter to defer an AHRC complaint while mediation was pursued and participated in the resulting mediations. General assertions about faded memories, former employees and missing documents did not establish that the remaining claims could not be fairly tried.
Key Takeaways
- Meeting a statutory filing timeframe does not prevent a claim being permanently stayed as an abuse of process where a fair trial is impossible.
- A permanent stay requires an exceptional, claim-specific showing that the prospective trial would be necessarily unfair or unjustifiably oppressive.
- Early, detailed notice of allegations may substantially weaken a later delay-based stay application, particularly where the respondent had an opportunity to investigate and participated in settlement processes.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates the Federal Court’s granular approach to delayed workplace-discrimination claims. Rather than treating the age of an entire case as determinative, the Court assessed each allegation against the available evidence, the timing and detail of notice, and the respondent’s actual forensic prejudice.
Employers receiving serious internal grievances should preserve evidence and investigate promptly. A respondent that has detailed notice of allegations may find it difficult to later rely on delay, especially where it encouraged mediation before a formal complaint was lodged.