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A tribunal will now reconsider whether an employer discriminated against a female manager who earned less than her male colleagues, after an appeal court accepted it applied outdated concepts to her original claim.

The Austin Health orthotic and prosthetic department manager claimed the employer discriminated against her on the basis of her sex and age, when it denied her the opportunity to negotiate and be paid remuneration that was above the relevant enterprise agreement rates.

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal heard that after becoming manager, she discovered several male subordinates were being paid above-agreement rates, with one in particular receiving well in excess of her remuneration (at one point, $41k more).

Between 2011 and 2015, the manager approached her superiors on five occasions to negotiate an over-agreement salary for herself, without success...