A woman who took legal action against her former employer for not receiving a leaving card lost her case.
Karen Conaghan alleged that IAG, the parent company of British Airways, had breached equality law due to a “failure to acknowledge her existence”.
However, an employment tribunal was told by an ex-colleague that managers had purchased a card but Conaghan did not receive it because of the low number of signatures.
The judge, Kevin Palmer, said: “He believed it would have been more insulting to give her the card than not to give her a card at all.”
The firm made two other staff members redundant during “restructuring” and they too were not presented with cards, the tribunal heard.
Conaghan, who had worked as a business liaison lead, filed 40 complaints against the company, alleging sexual harassment, victimisation, and unfair dismissal.
However, the tribunal rejected all her claims, with Palmer stating that Conaghan – who started working at the company in 2019 – had developed a “conspiracy-theory mentality” and misinterpreted “normal workplace interactions” as harassment.
One claim suggested that a colleague had copied her use of the word “whiz” in a card for another staff member, but corrected her spelling by writing “whizz” instead.
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In another, she said an employee had asked her: “Are you taking the p**s, Karen?”
The comments came after Conaghan suggested she had “done all of the hard work” and it was his “turn to do some”, the tribunal heard.
Conaghan relocated to Richmond, North Yorkshire, in September 2021, even though it was anticipated that all employees would live within two hours of the Heathrow office.
She was made redundant later that year during an organisational restructuring, with colleagues testifying that many others also left around the same period.
Karen Conaghan alleged that IAG, the parent company of British Airways, had breached equality law due to a ‘failure to acknowledge her existence’
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Despite the card gaining more signatures, an ex employee decided “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]”.
The Judge ruled that the claims “either did not happen or, if they did happen, they were innocuous interactions in the normal course of employment”.
He stated that there was no evidence indicating that any of Conaghan’s allegations were connected to her gender and suggested that one of the allegations reflected her tendency to perceive ordinary interactions as something more malicious.