Key cases on harassment Flashcards
Richmond Pharmacology v Dhaliwal (2009)
EAT: allegation of racist language in the workplace.
An employer may be held liable even where his conduct has produced unintentional prescribed consequences. No liability unless it was reasonable that the prescribed consequences occurred. Not every comment that is racist or perceived as racist made as a joke will be done for the purpose of violating that persons dignity.
Meaning of prescribed consequences
The feelings of the victim. They were also required to consider that if the victim did have these feelings, was it reasonable for them to feel this way?
Causation principle
Conduct must relate to a PC.
Land Registry v Grant (2011)
Involved a worker who revealed his sexual orientation to the workplace. It was not possible then for the disclosure of this orientation at a different workplace to constitute harassment.
The claimant, a homosexual male, made an appeal that the judge had erred in some of his claims on harassment and that the matter be reconsidered.
EAT: the actions of his line manager were due to a lack of sensivity, but not a campaign of harassment.
Elias J on ‘harassment’: The tribunal must not cheapen the significance of the words. They are used to prevent trivial acts being caught up in the concept of harassment.
Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board v Hughes
UNREPORTED CASE
A case relating to disability harassment. It focused closely on the wording of legislation and how the term ‘violating’ is a strong word (perhaps suggesting a high threshold for action?) it must search for effects that are serious and marked towards victim (s).
Henderson v The General Municipal and Boilermakers Union (2015)
Mrs Justice Simler DBE: Isolated acts on their own are unlikely to constitute harassment. If so, they must reach a certain degree of seriousness before they are admitted as ‘harassment’.
Wilson Barca LLP v Shirin (2020)
Employers appealed against a ruling that granted the employee compensation on the basis of injury to feelings as a result of harassment. She said this was based on age, saying she was too old for the role, and sex, calling her a ‘stupid cow’. It contended that this hurt her feelings, but did not give rise to her illness.
EAT: erred because there was no evidence that the employee had suffered in terms of her feelings and in awarding aggravated damages.
Noble v Sidhil Ltd (2016)
An employment tribunal erred in law in finding that racial harassment claims were not made out because the employee did not share a protected characteristic.
Porcelli v Strathclyde RC (1984)
EAT: heard a sexual discrimination complaint and they found that the court was to make two considerations when assessing a case. The first being whether there was any sexual harassment, and the second whether it was to the detriment of the victim.
What is harassment?
Unwanted conduct that has the purpose of violating the dignity of someone/a group of people in the workplace with the intention of creating a hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.
Equality Act 2010
Legislation that lists the relevant “protected characteristics” under which one can make a claim of harassment.
