Plaintiff failed to prove any breach of duty

Hoyes v Wellways Australia Limited ACN 093 357 165 [2025] QDC 125

3 September 2025

The facts

Ms Hoyes was employed by Wellways, providing residential accommodation and care to juveniles. Wellways was contracted to provide these services on behalf of the Department of Child Services.

Ms Hoyes alleged that she sustained a psychiatric injury over the course of her employment, but with a focus on three particular incidents. The first incident occurred on 16 November 2018. During cross-examination, she was asked whether the incidents prior to that date had any effect on her, to which she responded ‘the earlier incidents did have an effect on me. My belief is, and I hope I’m corrected here, we chose the three most damaging ones to write up’.

Throughout the course of the trial, the focus shifted to be on the third incident, which Ms Hoyes indicated was the most significant.

The third incident occurred on 16 August 2019, while Ms Hoyes was caring for a child known as Darcy. During the course of her care, Darcy produced a razor blade, and said that she was going to kill herself. Darcy walked outside of the premises, and Ms Hoyes followed. Darcy then told Ms Hoyes ‘if you don’t leave me alone, I’ll bash your f…ing head in’. Ms Hoyes phoned emergency services, following which Darcy became more heightened and ultimately pushed Ms Hoyes against the wall, removed a lighter from her pocket, stating ‘I’ll burn you with this, I’ll f…ing burn you’, while flicking the lighter on and off.

Darcy was much larger than Ms Hoyes, and Ms Hoyes understandably found the event quite distressing.

There had been prior incidents of aggression from Darcy prior to the subject incident, but this was the first event which involved a weapon. Previously a staff member had been injured by Darcy, but that staff member continued to work with Darcy. Most of her incidents involved threats of self-harm or verbal abuse.

The extent the response required

Wellways accepted that there was a foreseeable and not-insignificant risk of psychiatric injury to support workers employed by it to care for disadvantaged young people.

In terms of the extent of the responses required to Ms Hoyes in particular, it is relevant to note that Ms Hoyes had a significant and longstanding past psychiatric history. His Honour found that Ms Hoyes was generally a credible witness, except for the fact that she downplayed the extent of her past psychiatric history. The past history included pre-existing PTSD, or bipolar disorder.

In her application for employment, Ms Hoyes was asked about whether or not she had any pre-existing psychiatric difficulties, to which she responded ‘depression – managed’. She did not disclose any of her past psychiatric history to Wellways throughout the course of her employment, nor did she report to Wellways that interacting with the children was having an impact on her own psyche.

Against that background, Wellways was unable to give any consideration to the specific needs or vulnerabilities of Ms Hoyes, or any additional precautions that might be required. Accordingly, the pre-existing medical conditions were not to be taken into account in determining the type of precautions that ought reasonably have been implemented by Wellways.

The precautions

Wellways had in place a number of precautions to manage the risk to its employees, including:

provision of information about the role at the commencement of employment;
staff were required to have certain qualifications, or be working towards those qualifications;
‘buddy shifts’ at the early stages of employment;
risk assessments were completed in relation to each child, and communicated to employees;
one on one ‘supervision’ meetings between the employee and manager, where the employee could discuss how they were going, strategies for managing behaviours, or raise any other particular concerns that they might have. These were paid and on a monthly basis;
‘house meetings’, where all of the employees involved in the care of a particular individual would come together to discuss the care requirements for that young person. This would be an opportunity to raise issues about problematic behaviours, and strategies that might be used. These were paid and on a monthly basis, and minutes were emailed to employees;
‘group supervisions’, facilitated by Evolve Therapeutic Services. Evolve were separately working with the young people in care, addressing their mental health difficulties. The sessions were an educative and reflective process, allowing employees to reflect on their practice and learn ways of responding to particular cases;
there were consequences for non-participation with meetings, including the cessation of work shifts;
staff member could request not to be rostered with any particular juvenile;
provision of an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), which provided free and confidential counselling. This was well communicated to staff through posters, in meetings, and after incidents;
post-incident supervision, being a special supervision organised following significant incidents.

His Honour described these as ‘considerable’.

The decision

Ms Hoyes suggested that Wellways should have:

provided immediate counselling;
provided two support workers rostered to certain juveniles, and in particular Darcy; and
relinquished care of Darcy, because of her past history.

In relation to the provision of immediate counselling, both Dr Michael Likely and Dr Luke Murphy agreed that the important thing was whether or not proper professional counselling was offered, and gave evidence that mandatory counselling could in fact be detrimental and could itself lead to adverse mental health consequences. Ms Hoyes herself gave evidence that she knew of the availability of EAP, was encouraged to take up that support, but chose not to do so.

In relation to whether a second care worker was required, His Honour noted that there was a significant cost implication to providing that second support worker. Wellways had applied for provision of an additional support worker, given the difficulties in managing Darcy, but this was rejected by Department of Child Services. He considered that this would have been an overwhelming burden for Wellways, without funding being approved by the Department of Child Services. His Honour indicated that provision of a second support worker may have assisted, but there was no evidence of any assessment being done as to its appropriateness. Ms Hoyes’ own psychiatric expert, Dr Likely, agreed that such an arrangement was not a ‘quick’ fix, and assessment was needed in respect of the particular young person as to whether it would have an effect.

In relation to whether care should have been relinquished, His Honour found that just because the Department of Child Services had rejected an application for an additional support worker, does not mean that support for Darcy should have immediately ceased. It was important in His Honour’s reasoning that support workers were able to indicate whether they wished to continue working with various young people. His Honour noted that it was only following the third incident with Darcy and the plaintiff, where there was an escalation of behaviour with a blade present, that her care was relinquished. Prior to that, the incidents had mostly involved verbal threats and self-harm, and while there was an incident involving physical acts towards a support work, the support worker continued to work with her. Accordingly, the failure to relinquish care prior to the third incident was not a failure on the part of Wellways to implement a reasonable precaution.

Overall, Ms Hoyes failed to prove any breach of duty, or factual causation, and her claim was unsuccessful.

The theoretical damages

Expert psychiatric evidence was provided by Dr Michael Likely, for Ms Hoyes, and Wellways called Dr Lucas Murphy.

Dr Likely diagnosed PTSD, solely arising from the events of the subject injury, concluding that Ms Hoyes was psychologically well at the time of the events. Dr Murphy considered that Ms Hoyes had a significant past history, including PTSD, and that the events at Wellways caused a temporary exacerbation of her condition, impacting her for about 18 months following the most significant event. Under cross-examination, Dr Likely conceded that Ms Hoyes did in fact have a significant psychiatric history, based on the substantial medical records put to him, and on that basis, His Honour preferred the evidence of Dr Murphy, whose opinion was in line with that material.

At the time of the subject injuries, Ms Hoyes was working with Wellways while studying medical laboratory sciences. It was always her intention to cease work with Wellways and work in the field of her chosen career. She in fact did so, originally working for Queensland Health, then moving to Melbourne and working for a number of employers there. By the time of the trial, she had returned to Queensland, and again taken up a position with Queensland Health.

In her various post-incident employments, she utilised sick leave, for which she indicated was a result of the subject psychological condition. However, having been paid those sick leave entitlements, she had suffered no loss.

Additionally, Ms Hoyes called evidence of a previous manager, Ms Davidson. Ms Davidson gave evidence of Ms Hoyes having a bright future, without any suggestion of limitation arising as part of her work. Ms Davidson said Ms Hoyes was a pleasure to work with, and her contributions to the department both professionally and personally were appreciated.

His Honour accepted there was small issues with past economic loss and attributed a total of $5,000 for same. In terms of future economic loss, he considered that a global award of $45,000 would be appropriate, concluding that the amount sought by the plaintiff was inordinately high, but some allowance should be made for the possibilities at play.

A modest award was allowed for general damages, and no allowance for future special damages.

The lessons for plaintiffs

There is always risk with trials, and here Ms Hoyes was unsuccessful.

As she was unsuccessful, she has been ordered to pay WorkCover’s costs of the proceeding.

Ms Hoyes’ medico-legal evidence was not preferred, given that it failed to properly consider the full extent of her past psychiatric condition. The basis of an expert’s findings is highly important in assessing the likelihood of that expert’s opinion being accepted at trial.

The lessons for defendants

This is an important decision for any organisation providing social work services, although particularly in residential care situations. The measures implemented by Wellways were considered reasonable in circumstances where there were no known psychiatric or other difficulties that a particular employee was experiencing. Accordingly, these will act as a good guidepost as to the type of measures that should be implemented in those settings.