Employer not liable for employee’s alleged rape at work event

A national law firm said it should not be liable for the alleged rape of one of its employees who attended an overnight work event.

An employee of Hall Payne Lawyers alleged she was sexually assaulted and raped during a November 2023 work trip that required her to stay overnight at a resort in Grindelwald, Tasmania.

In addition to sponsoring the conference, the event was run by a client of Hall Payne Lawyers. The alleged perpetrator attended the event but was not otherwise connected to the firm.

According to the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, the employee attended during the day as a “firm representative” and went to a dinner that was scheduled to end at 10.30pm.

The alleged rape occurred in the perpetrator’s villa around 2am.

The employee said the terms of her contract of employment obligated her to attend the event, and her presence at the resort, including the intervening night, was “in accord with her employment”.

While the firm accepted the employee suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and had paid for treatment by a psychologist, it disputed the workers’ compensation claim because her employment was “not the major or most significant factor” in the alleged rape.

It argued her employment on the night came to an end at 10.30pm, and the alleged rape took place 3.5 hours after this.

Further, the firm said it did not “encourage or induce such activity”.

Under section 81a of the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988, an employer can cease paying compensation to an employee if a reasonably arguable case exists concerning liability.

The tribunal found the employee’s attendance at the conference “was not only induced or encouraged by the employer but was in fact required by the worker’s contract of employment”.

“However, it is arguable in my view … that the activity causative of the worker’s PTSD, namely the sexual assault, was not an activity induced or encouraged by the employer, and hence there was an insufficient connection with the worker’s employment to create a liability in the employer to pay compensation,” the tribunal said.

The case is Hall Payne Lawyers Pty Ltd Trading as Hall Payne Lawyers v MSQ [2025] TASCAT 6 (14 January 2025).