UK woman wins disability case against Abercrombie
August 14th, 2009
From the [UK] Times, BBC News, Associated Press, and AFP;
Riam Dean, 22, was awarded £9,000 by an employment tribunal after alleging that she was harassed and dismissed by the Abercrombie & Fitch clothing chain for reasons related to her disability.
Dean sued the clothing giant for discrimination, saying the firm’s London store banished her to the stockroom because her prosthetic arm didn’t meet the company’s “look policy,” then dismissed her over the disagreement. Dean, a law student, was born without a left forearm.
The Central London Employment Tribunal ruled that Dean was “unlawfully harassed for a reason that related to her disability” under the Disability Discrimination Act. The tribunal also found that the firm “failed to comply with its duty to make reasonable adjustments” for her disability.
Earlier post here.
(AP photo)
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August 14th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Abercrombie and Fitch are wrong in saying that the British Tribunal found that A and F did not discriminate against Riam Dean on the grounds of her disability.Those words hinge on a technical distinction in UK law between discrimination for a reason related to disability and what is called ‘Direct Discrimination’. The Tribunal found disability discrimination for a reason related to her disability, because she was sent to the stockrom and no allowances were made for her need to wear a cardigan to cover her prosthetic arm. Crazy law! The Tribunal couldn’t find what is called ‘Direct Discrimination’ because that requires them to compare her as a disabled person sent to the stockroom for wearing a cardigan to a non-disabled person wearing a cardigan who was sent to the stockroom. The result of this would be the same treatment.Alice through the Looking Glass or what??!! The UK law is badly in need of revision to protect disabled employees.