EAT The claimant said that she had been subjected to crass sexual banter by her senior manager. She refused to take up a post unless he was moved, and when he declined to so, she was dismissed.
The court cited a US case ‘the trier of fact must keep in mind that each successive episode has its predecessors, that the impact of the separate incidents may accumulate and that the work environment may exceed the sum of the individual episodes.’
Where an act may be so obviously detrimental as being intimidating or undermining of the dignity at work of the Claimant the the lack of any contemporaneous complaint was of little or no significance: ‘By contrast [the complainant] may complain of one or more matters which if taken individually may not objectively signify much, if anything, in terms of detriment. Then a contemporaneous indication of sensitivity on [the complainant’s] part becomes obviously material as does the evidence of the alleged discriminator as to his perception. That which in isolation may not amount to discriminatory detriment may become such if persisted in notwithstanding objection, vocal or apparent. The passage . . from the judgment of the US Federal Appeal Court is germane. By contrast the facts may simply disclose hyper-sensitivity on the part of the [complainant] to conduct which was reasonably not perceived by the alleged discriminator as being to [the complainants] detriment – no finding of discrimination can then follow.’
Judges:
The Honourable Mr Justice Holland
Citations:
EAT/1120/98, [1999] UKEAT 1120 – 98 – 1712, [2000] IRLR 151
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
See Also – Driskel v Peninsula Business Services Ltd and others EAT 14-Apr-1999
. .
Cited – Payzu Limited v Saunders CA 1919
The innocent plaintiff buyers had been found to have failed to mitigate their damages because they had not accepted an offer from the defendant sellers (who were in breach of contract) to supply goods on cash terms, the contract having originally . .
Cited – Qureshi v Victoria University of Manchester EAT 21-Jun-1996
The Industrial Tribunal only has jurisdiction to consider and rule upon the act or acts of which complaint is made to it. The questions on a complaint of race discrimination are: (a) Did the act complained of actually occur? (b) If the act . .
Cited by:
See Also – Driskel v Peninsula Business Services Ltd and Another EAT 7-Dec-2001
The claimant sought leave to appeal against a finding that though there had been serious sex discrimination, the affect on her had been low, and the damages for injury to feelings reduced accordingly.
Held: The appeal was dismissed. The . .
Cited – HM Land Registry v Grant EAT 15-Apr-2010
hmlr_grantEAT10
EAT SEXUAL ORIENTATION DISCRIMINATION/TRANSEXUALISM
HARASSMENT – Conduct
PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE – Appellate Jurisdiction /Reasons /Burns-Barke
An Employment Tribunal accepted that 6 out of 12 . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Discrimination, Employment
Updated: 21 October 2022; Ref: scu.171732