Employer Successfully Defends Bullying Claim
Ryanair has successfully defended a claim at the Employment Appeals Tribunal from a former flight attendant, Brian Butler, who claimed he had been bullied by a supervisor.
Mr Butler had claimed that the bullying was to such an extent that he often became nervous, apprehensive and unwell, to the point of being physically sick. The Claimant did raise his concerns informally but because he felt they were not being dealt with fast enough, he decided to resign from his post. The tribunal heard that having submitted his notice Mr Butler went off on sick leave, citing an ear ache.
The tribunal found that although Mr Butler was aware of the Company’s grievance procedure he had not formally raised his issue via the process available to him; he then left the Company before they had an opportunity to address his issues.
Lessons Learnt
This case shows the importance of having a grievance procedure in place and of ensuring all staff are aware of it.
A grievance procedure gives employees a forum to raise issues where they will be dealt with in a consistent, thorough and fair manner.
With no grievance procedure in place an employee has a much greater chance of bringing a successful claim against a company because there was no recourse to raise their compliant internally.
In this case Ryanair’s policies and procedures protected them from what could have been an extremely expensive case.
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