Sour aftertaste over dismissal

By Scott Wilson, Partner and Summer Pringle, Law Clerk

It is no use crying over spilt milk, or in this case bitter tasting coffee that causes you to lose your job. An American female receptionist was fired for (among other things) refusing to make and serve coffee to her male supervisors.

Ms K was hired as a receptionist for a large manufacturer of rubber tiles. Her formal title was “receptionist/data entry”. It was explained to Ms K in her interview that the supervisors would expect the receptionist to sometimes get them coffee, although this was not part of the official job description.

During the six weeks of Ms K’s employment, she agreed to bring coffee to the male supervisors on a few occasions. However, she found their requests demeaning and embarrassing because the requests “reinforced outdated gender stereotypes”. She was also annoyed that on three separate occasions someone had entered a reminder in her electronic calendar that coffee was due at 3pm.

After five and a half weeks of employment, Ms K had enough. One of her supervisors asked her to bring him a coffee, and she refused. The supervisor wrote an email to Ms K later in the day explaining that one of her many responsibilities as a receptionist was to make and get coffee for the supervisors - and that responsibility was not open for debate. Ms K received her supervisor’s email the following morning and replied that she did not have a problem getting coffee for guests or clients, but she did not want to make and serve the supervisors coffee everyday.

Ms K was fired nine minutes later. One week earlier, the supervisors had discussed dismissing Ms K because she failed to pass on important phone calls, placed wrong pricing labels on customer packages, improperly packed parcels and did not offer coffee to office guests. Ms K’s email that stated she would not bring coffee to the supervisors was the last straw.

Ms K brought her grievance to a United States federal district court alleging she was the subject of sexual harassment and gender discrimination. The court held that the act of getting coffee could not establish a discriminatory intent, unless there were indicators of sexism. In Ms K’s situation, there were no indicators of sexism.

Neither was there evidence that Ms K was treated differently because of her gender.

The court concluded by noting that while the behaviour of Ms K’s supervisors may have been rude or undesirable, the supervisors’ actions did not amount to sexual harassment or gender discrimination.

In New Zealand, the Human Rights Act 1993 governs harassment and discrimination issues. The tests for harassment and discrimination under that Act and also under the Civil Rights Act 1964 (US) are not identical. Still, the outcome of this case would be similar in New Zealand because Ms K experienced no direct or environmental harassment, and she received no less favourable treatment than any similarly situated employees or previous receptionists.

While the decision may have been hard to swallow, Ms K was clearly not fulfilling the expected job criteria.

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