A woman who sued her former employer after not receiving a leaving card lost her case when it emerged that a card had been hidden from her because barely anyone had signed it.
Karen Conaghan claimed that the “failure to acknowledge her existence” during her time at British Airways’ parent company IAG victimised her and breached equality law.
However, an employment tribunal heard that managers at the company had indeed purchased a card, but only three people signed it, The Times reports.
Ms Conaghan’s colleagues feared it would be insulting to hand her a card with so few signatures.
The court heard that Ms Conaghan brought 40 complaints against the company for sexual harassment, victimisation and unfair dismissal, but all of these were dismissed by the tribunal.
A judge ruled that Ms Conaghan had adopted a “conspiracy theory mentality” and that she mistook workplace interactions for something more sinister.
She was made redundant two years into her job at the company following a restructuring.
Ms Conaghan told the tribunal that the company had refused to acknowledge her “existence within the company” by not giving her a leaving card.
But the tribunal accepted an explanation from one of Ms Conaghan’s colleagues which explained there was evidence that lots of people had left the organisation around the same time due to the restructuring.
Judge, Kevin Palmer, noted in his ruling that “only two or three people” had signed Ms Conaghan’s leaving card and that her colleague “believed that it would have been more insulting to give her the card than not to give her a card at all”.
The Times reports that the judge explained that more people had signed the leaving card once Ms Conaghan had left the building but a former colleague believed “it was inappropriate to send such a card to [her] at a later date as she had raised a grievance against him and [another colleague]”.
There was also evidence that two male colleagues had not received a card, leading the judge to rule that there was nothing inconsistent in the behaviour and that it could not be related to her sex.
Giving or receiving cards in the workplace can have potential legal consequences.
Last year an employment tribunal judge ruled that sending an employee an unwanted birthday card could amount to “unwanted conduct” and harassment.
