Woman wins Sex Discrimination Tribunal: A Cautionary Tale

Woman wins Sex Discrimination Tribunal: A Cautionary Tale

 

I read about Lucy Pagliarone this morning, a woman who worked for a pharmaceutical company for 6 months before leaving and claiming sex discrimination. She won at Tribunal, in that the Judge found in her favour and awarded her £10,500.

 

£10,500 she may never receive due to the financial status of the company and even if she does get the money, she has admitted all of it will be going to pay her legal fees. Living on Guernsey she states solicitors cost £800 an hour.

 

She says she doesn’t care about the money, stating ‘she had to take a stand’. She insists even without her pay out she has no regrets, ‘harbouring feelings of bitterness and anger wasn’t going to get me anywhere’. Suing a company with frozen assets however was never going to get her much further than a hollow victory.

 

To some degree  I see her point, she has been treated dreadfully, however to take her claim all the way to a final hearing and come away with a judgement against a company with frozen assets and a large legal bill to boot, suggests either unmanaged expectations or naivety.

 

Look at it this way, Eva Carnerio has agreed to be effectively gagged for a rumoured £2-4million. That settlement is definitely as good as the gold plated paper it is written on, coming from a solvent and high value company. Her legal fees no doubt will be enormous but the settlement will be more than commercial enough for her not to have to think about working again for a considerable time.

 

Pagliarone did not want to be gagged, she wanted to tell the world how dreadfully she has been treated, her Daily Mail story today will be tomorrow’s fish and chip wrapper and I would be surprised if anyone remembers the name of the man involved or the company (I read the article 10 minutes ago and can’t recall it!).

 

Whilst Carnerio’s rumoured settlement amount is astounding, the principles around resolving matters before a final hearing and before fees mount remains consistent. The true value of getting your judgement and potentially your face in the paper is a poor return. Pagliarone has labelled herself as, now publically, ‘litigious’, something which scares employers to death. She has now retrained as a holistic therapist after being out of work for months.