A Melbourne dock worker who reported safety breaches was ostracised, received death threats and had a coworker defecate in his boots.
His employer couldn't have been reasonably expected to intervene, a Victorian County Court judge found.
But now the state's highest court says that's not true.
The 51-year-old worker, who asked to remain anonymous, was called a "rat dog" by those he worked with as a stevedore for DP World, a Dubai-based logistics company with a hub in the Port of Melbourne.
The bullying and harassment by colleagues began after the dock worker, responsible for occupational health and safety, repeatedly reported safety breaches on the work site starting in 2008.
Hazard reports, which were supposed to be anonymous, were pinned to a noticeboard so workers would know it was him who submitted them, and after he raised one particular safety issue an operations manager told him "I'm sick of you and your f***ing hazards".
On another occasion he was called a dog over a radio system and told "no one f***ing cares about you".
When he asked to listen to a recording of the conversation another worker, red faced and spitting, told him "I should smash you, you f***ing c***".
Graffiti was painted targeting the man, who was also laughed at when he and others discovered someone had defecated in his work boots.
Judge Phillip Ginnane dismissed a case against DP World after a 23-day trial in January, finding there was no pattern of behaviour against the dock worker.
He noted it was a "robust workplace, not for the faint-hearted" and that the duty of care owed to the man was not breached.
But the appeal judges found prevention of bullying or harassment in the workplace was unquestionably a modern responsibility of employers.
They said while the judge had examined each of the bullying and harassment incidents individually, he did not consider whether in combination they amounted to bullying.
The judges also noted that merely because a worker's tormenters engaged in a variety of activities that variation and lack of repetition could not constitute bullying.
The treatment left him suffering a serious psychological injury and, with the Court of Appeal finding in his favour on Wednesday, he will now pursue a claim for damages, his lawyers said.
"An employee shouldn't have to be repeatedly targeted in the same way by the same person before an employer is expected to intervene," his solicitor Shakira Ramsdell said.
"This decision recognises that bullying takes many forms - whether it's verbal or physical, direct or indirect - and such conduct should be viewed in totality."
