{{Infobox court case , name = Keech v Metropolitan Health Service , italic title = force , court =

Federal Court of Australia The Federal Court of Australia is an Australian superior court of record which has jurisdiction to deal with most civil disputes governed by federal law (with the exception of family law matters), along with some summary (less serious) and indic ...

, image = Coat of Arms of Australia.svg , imagealt = Australian Coat of Arms , full name = Keech v State of Western Australia Metropolitan Health Service t/as King Edward Memorial Hospital , date decided = {{start date, 2010, 12, 02, df=yes , citations = {{cite AustLII, FCA, 1332, 2010, parallelcite=(2010) 215 FCR 393; 276 ALR 118;

011 The following is a list of different international call prefixes that need to be dialled when placing an international telephone call from different countries. Countries by international prefix Countries using optional carrier selection cod ...

nbsp; ALMD 3045;

nbsp; ALMD 3235 , transcripts = , judges = Siopis J , number of judges = 1 , prior actions = , subsequent actions = , opinions = , keywords = ''Keech v Metropolitan Health Service'' was a

court case A legal case is in a general sense a dispute between opposing parties which may be resolved by a court, or by some equivalent legal process. A legal case is typically based on either civil or criminal law. In most legal cases there are one or mor ...

decided in the

in which the exemption relating to acts of a State or Territory contained within the

Age Discrimination Act 2004 The Age Discrimination Act 2004 is an Act of the Parliament of Australia that prohibits age discrimination in many areas including employment, education, accommodation and the provision of goods and services. Persons of any age can be discrimi ...

was considered.

The case

The applicant, Keech, was injured at work at the age of 66. RiskCover, the insurance company of the Metropolitan Health Service, accepted liability and paid compensation under the ''Workers’ Compensation and Injury Management Act 1981 (WA)'' (the WA Act). The WA Act provided different schemes of payment whereby workers injured before attaining the age of 64 would be entitled to compensation until they turned 65, and workers injured after attaining this age would be entitled to compensation for a year after the date of the injury. Keech argued that by paying her compensation for the period prescribed by the WA Act, the Metropolitan Health Service had treated her less favourably than a younger employee who incurred a workplace injury at the same time as she did. She also argued that the conduct of the Metropolitan Health Service was not exempt from the Age Discrimination Act as it was not in direct compliance with the WA Act - that is, the WA Act prescribed a date at which entitlements to compensation could cease, but it did not oblige employers to stop paying at this time.

The decision

Siopis J considered that the Metropolitan Health Service's conduct was unlikely to constitute

age discrimination Ageism, also spelled agism, is discrimination against individuals or groups on the basis of their age. The term was coined in 1969 by Robert Neil Butler to describe discrimination against seniors, and patterned on sexism and racism. Butler def ...

but found it unnecessary to finally determine this issue, because in any case they had directly complied with the WA Act. His Honour interpreted the WA Act as imposing an obligation on employers to pay compensation for a prescribed period and the respondent had directly complied with this requirement. As such, the employer's conduct was exempt from the Age Discrimination Act. ''This article contains content derived from th
October 2011 edition of "Federal Discrimination Law"
produced by the

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, which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia License.'' 2010 in Australian law 2010 in case law Federal Court of Australia cases Human rights case law