A staff member at the Australian National University says she was humiliated when she was sacked after seeking a pay upgrade.
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Joyce Noronha-Barrett has asked the Federal Court to order the university to pay her compensation, not make her redundant, and hire her into a newly established job.
Documents filed by her lawyer Bradley Allen Love Lawyers also sought a provisional court order to freeze Ms Noronha-Barrett's termination, to stop the university filling the new position, and allowing her access to her workplace.
Court papers said Ms Noronha-Barrett - whose online profile says she has worked in the education sector for 30 years - started work as a senior administrator in the school of Archaeology and Anthropology in March 2011.
She was paid as a level 6/7, but she discovered the pay rate breached the enterprise agreement because the job should have been classified as a level 8.
Ms Noronha-Barrett applied for a classification review in May, but the ANU at first refused to consider the request and then rejected it after 15 weeks.
The ANU then failed to failed to refer an appeal, lodged in September, to a classifications review panel.
Meanwhile, Ms Noronha-Barrett's position was abolished and a new level 8 job was established in its place.
She was not offered the job.
Her employment with the ANU was set to finish next week.
Ms Noronha-Barrett's lawyers say the ANU breached the workplace laws again by not redeploying her into the new job.
Court papers said the decision meant she suffered loss and damage, including financial loss through past underpayment and loss of future income, and suffered shock, distress, and humiliation.
Her lawyers say the university sacked her to prevent her from exercising her workplace rights to refer the dispute to the Fair Work Commission.
"The respondent took adverse action against the applicant by refusing or failing to redeploy her into the position after it was reclassified and refused or failed to provide any necessary training to assist her meet the selection criteria for the position within a reasonable timeframe," court papers said.
"The respondent's refusal or failure to redeploy the applicant into the position after it was reclassified was taken in order to prevent the applicant from continuing to be employed in the position."
Ms Noronha-Barrett asked the court to declare the ANU had breached the Fair Work Act, and order she be hired in the level 8 job and paid compensation.
The ANU refused to accept the temporary conditions when the matter appeared for mention before Justice Jayne Jagot in December.
The court heard the two sides had reached a "rock-solid impasse".
But the parties reached a temporary agreement after the judge warned she would refuse the interlocutory application with costs.
Frenzied negotiations led the court to issue interim orders, by consent, that ANU not terminate Ms Noronha-Barrett's job before a review had been completed, and that she could apply for vacant jobs at the university.
The court also ordered the ANU to file and serve its defence by late January.
The matter is listed for directions in early February.
