Expect a more robust approach to harassment cases, says Elliot Gold
The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) in Richmond Pharmacology v Dhaliwal [2009] UKEAT/458/08 has given specific guidance for employment tribunals to follow when hearing claims of harassment. The facts of this matter were disputed but not complicated. The claimant was a woman of Indian ethnic origin. The time came when she wished to leave from her employment with the respondent company and she gave notice of her resignation.
Crossed wires
This caused some friction between the claimant and her boss who suggested that the claimant should still ensure that her work was to the desired standard stating, “We will probably bump into each other in future, unless you are married off in India”. The manager disputed this saying that the words that she spoke were “unless you are married or in India”. One may have been a potentially offensive reference to forced marriage; the other may have been a reference to the far less objectionable issue of arranged marriage, if that.
Mr Justice Underhill, the new president of the EAT, stated that the
