Featured Image Credit: Nine News
Topics: Jobs, World News, Australia
Olivia Burke
An Australian law firm has been fined nearly £25,000 after forcing a new employee to work 24-hour shifts.
The now apparently defunct company, Erudite Legal, made the woman pull 'egregious' all nighters and work a whopping 79-hour week, Melbourne's Magistrate Court heard.
And to rub salt in the wound, the firm then drastically underpaid the female solicitor by $8,000 (£3,879), according to the Australian Financial Review.
She was only employed at Erudite Legal for three weeks, but her boss Shivesh Kuksal is said to have heaped a lot of responsibility on her during this brief period.
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The woman had to work shifts ranging from 12 to 18 hours in length, magistrate Kathryn Fawcett said, while she also had to slog away for 24-hours straight on two occasions.
While employed at Erudite Legal, the court heard the lawyer had to endure a 'repugnant' working environment, while magistrates were told how she was once stuck in the office from 12pm to 12pm during her first week.
Kuksal, who was also the firm's sole shareholder, is said to have told her to rest for a few hours following this lengthy stint, before ordering her to return to work once again at 6pm.
Unbelievably, the lawyer then worked until almost 1am.
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The next day, she was reportedly informed that she would be working from a hotel room for a few nights, rather than going home in between shifts.
The employee was bizarrely forced to share a bed with the office manager, the Australian Financial Review reported, while working another graveyard shift which spanned from 9am to 5.30am the following morning.
In one instance were she had completed a lengthy 14-hour shift, which finally wrapped up at 1am, the court heard that Kuksal - who regularly lectured her about history, philosophy, world religion, management style and his 'superior IQ' - gave her another task to complete.
He is said to have urged the lawyer to watch the 2004 sports film Miracle, in which Kurt Russell stars as an ice hockey coach who leads the US team to victory at the Olympics.
Kuksal reportedly told her that she must watch 'at least half' of the two hour and 15 minute movie, as he supposedly hoped Miracle would help explain a philosophical point he was trying to make.
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The law firm boss then texted her while it was on, asking questions about specific scenes to ensure she was watching it as instructed.
Kuksal also sent her a message quoting a line from Miracle, which said: "Gentlemen, you aren't talented enough to win on talent alone."
The woman finished the film in the early hours of the morning, at around 3.20am.
Despite her putting serious time in, Erudite Legal are alleged to have not paid her as scheduled - and when they eventually did, they only gave her a measly $1,000 (£485.28) for more than 225 hours of work.
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Fawcett told the court: "[Her] time was monopolised by [Erudite] and she was isolated both physically, and in her capacity to communicate, from her family.
"In all the circumstances, they made her working environment so repugnant that it constituted a repudiatory breach of contract.”
The excessive demands placed on the lawyer exacerbated a pre-existing medical condition, as well as complicating her mother's discharge from hospital after she had suffered a serious illness, the court heard.
As well as this, the woman was also forced to work while she had taken leave to attend the funeral of her ex-partner, magistrates in Melbourne were told.
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Erudite Legal did not pose a defence to the magistrates during the case, while the firm also did not comply with a court order demanding it rectifies the underpaying of the employee.
Fawcett said this showed a 'striking lack of contrition', while adding that forcing the woman to share a bed with her manager 'deprived her of any form of personal autonomy or agency without any rational justification'.
She fined Erudite Legal $22,000 (£10,673) for failing to give the woman her wages on time, as well as imposing another $26,640 (£12,925) penalty for the unreasonable hours the lawyer had to work.
Reports claim the law firm has since been deregistered, which the Australian Securities and Investments Commission explains means that you are no longer trading and 'do not have to continue your obligations as an officeholder'.
Kuksal was barred from engaging in legal practice in November 2024 by The Supreme Court in relation to a separate case, the Australian Financial Review reported.