Australia: No winners in David Jones Kristy Fraser-Kirk $ 37 mill sex case

This is a huge story in Australia dealing with sexual harassment at the workplace.

The Herald Sun reports that she sued David Jones for $37 million, but Kristy Fraser-Kirk will walk away from Australia's biggest sexual harassment case without a job at the department store and with up to $300,000 in legal costs.

The 27-year-old publicist will sacrifice a chunk of her $850,000 settlement to pay her legal team, publicist and three barristers, after agreeing to pay her court costs in the settlement with David Jones and former chief executive Mark McInnes, 45.

That includes paying for a top-class legal team at Harmers Workplace Lawyers, as well as expert witnesses, psychologists' reports and trips to Europe and the US to escape media scrutiny.

"I'm not saying anything about costs on either side," Ms Fraser-Kirk's spokesman, Anthony McLellan, said.

"It will be up to Kristy to determine what, if any, payment will be made to us."

Both David Jones and Fraser-Kirk's PR teams yesterday said the settlement was a win for their side - but neither emerged as winners.
Sources close to Ms Fraser-Kirk said the $850,000 payout - of which she is likely to take home about $500,000 -- was sizeable figure for a junior employee earning a salary of under $70,000 a year.

But poor PR and legal advice meant Ms Fraser-Kirk's case was fraught from the start - the absurdly high claim of $37 million in punitive damages exposed her to public ridicule and Federal Court judge Geoffrey Flick was highly critical of her team.

More details here





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Drunk as a Skunk Mon Throws Baby onto Concrete Floor in Australia (Video)

CCTV footage of a mother apparently throwing her baby onto a concrete floor has been released to media by an Australian judge.

The unnamed 21-year-old mother appears to throw the 10-month-old baby to the floor, allegedly in anger after an argument with her partner.
A man then tussles with the mother, who reports say was drunk, and attempts to remove the baby from her hands.
The incident occurred in the Palmerston bus exchange in the Northern Territory, Australia last May.

The mother is pleading not guilty to recklessly endangering serious harm to the child, claiming she dropped the child by accident.
The baby was taken to hospital, but suffered no major injuries.



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