$100k sexual harassment penalty slapped on contractor, customer

A former Storage King manager will receive over $100,000 in compensation under section 527D of the Fair Work Act 2009, after he was subjected to sexual harassment to the point of mental health diagnoses.

A cleaning and maintenance contractor and a customer of a Storage King branch have been collectively penalised $116,000 by the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (FCFCOA) for sexually harassing a Storage King manager for months until he was dismissed after taking personal leave.

A general practitioner diagnosed the manager with anxiety, stress, and depressive disorder one month into experiencing this harassment, FCFCOA Judge Salvatore Vasta found in his decision.

In September 2023, the applicant commenced employment at the Storage King site as a storage consultant, before his role was expanded to full site manager, in which he was responsible for customer service, branch marketing, banking, and maintenance coordination.

The contractor was the business’s first customer. Storage King eventually engaged the contractor for his cleaning and maintenance services, including the site for which the applicant was manager.

In late 2024 or early 2025, the manager alleged that the contractor began targeting him with homophobic and sexualised statements, referring to him as the “office boy” in a mocking and derogatory tone, and engaged in unwanted physical contact with the manager, shoving him and bumping into him.

Another customer began frequenting the business, becoming a “consistent feature of the workplace environment”, the judge said. He and the contractor seemed to become very friendly towards each other and would spend time around the sheds at the Storage King site, the manager submitted.

The judge found that the customer began making similar sexualised comments towards the manager. The manager alleged that in or about January 2025, the customer said that the manager was “getting tied up and left in a shed”, to which the contractor added that the manager was “probably used to it”.

During another interaction in or about February that same year, the manager submitted that as he was cleaning an area, the customer said that he was “bending over to clean the shed like he is practising for something”, to which the contractor allegedly added, “Yes, we know you like it that way”.

The manager further alleged that on one occasion, the contractor said the manager would “get raped in the shed” in the presence of the customer. The manager alleged that when a person named Jasin was present, the contractor’s conduct would escalate.

Judge Vasta called these alleged incidents “harrowing”. “The sense of isolation, the sense of degradation, the sense of being totally alone because it is always two against one, and, while this cannot be part of the award of damages, the fact that when he did get the courage to make the complaints, they were not listened to,” Judge Vasta said.

“This ended up being almost like a game between [the contractor] and [the customer], where they would bounce off each other to make the applicant the butt of the joke and the butt of the joke simply because they ascribed to him, whether they were serious or not, homosexual orientation.”

“He has that depressive disorder, which originated from these actions, and that has affected him to this day.”

After these incidents, the manager told the court that he believed the company had a more negative view of his work and abilities. He told the court that he then made a complaint, took personal leave, and was dismissed shortly after.

The judge said in his proceedings that the applicant’s sexual orientation is not relevant to the matter. “It really does not matter whether the applicant is, or has, a homosexual orientation or a heterosexual orientation or a bisexual orientation or some other form of orientation at all … The fact is that he is harassed, and he has suffered because of it,” Judge Vasta said.

Judge Vasta ruled that the contractor and the customer had contravened s 527D of the Fair Work Act by engaging in sexual harassment, ordering them to collectively pay the manager $90,000 for sexual harassment, and $13,000 each as a pecuniary penalty.

This follows the first sexual harassment decision under s 527D of the Fair Work Act, introduced in 2023, which prohibits sexual harassment in connection with work.

Carlos Tse

Carlos Tse is a graduate journalist writing for Accountants Daily, HR Leader, Lawyers Weekly.

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