A Japanese court dismissed a sexual harassment and unfair dismissal suit against fashion house Prada after management told a female worker to lose weight and keep in shape.
Rina Bovrisse, 38, who also claimed a Prada human resources manager had branded her “ugly,” said she would appeal the case and that the ruling by a female judge at Tokyo District Court was unacceptable.
Bovrisse was demanding that Prada pay her ￥58 million (US$728,000) for emotional distress.
“This decision by the judge allows sexually harassing comment to be made at the workplace, like ‘you must lose weight,’” she told local journalists on Friday, after the case had finished.
“In a word, my impression about the ruling is that this is preposterous,” she said.
Bovrisse, a Japanese national married to a Frenchman, alleged that Prada Japan had pressured a number of female employees into resigning by describing them as “aged, ugly, fat, bad body shape, bad teeth, disgusting and not cute.”
According to Bovrisse, the firm told her through a human resources manager to change her hairstyle, lose weight and ensure that she fits the “Prada look.”
Prada officials had admitted having asked her to lose weight and told her that as a senior retail manager overseeing 40 stores in Japan and two in Guam and Saipan, keeping in shape was essential, the Japan Times reported.
Presiding judge Ayako Morioka, however, dismissed the case saying that Bovrisse had failed to establish her claim that the fashion house had called her “ugly.”
Rather, the judge said, the firm had the right to dismiss her as she may have damaged the brand’s image by telling the media that the company had called her ugly.
Prada has a pending countersuit against Bovrisse, claiming defamation.
“There was no rationale to believe the core of the information [that she gave to the Japan Times in 2010] was true,” the judge said.
The court acknowledged that the human resources manager had told her the firm wished her to lose weight, but, while the comment was inconsiderate, it should not have caused distress so severe that warranted the seeking of compensation, the judge ruled.
The Japan Times, the nation’s main English-language newspaper, said yesterday it had published an article in March 2010 on Bovrisse’s claims.
After the ruling, Bovrisse told reporters that the judge in June had yelled at her and promised to rule against her, when she declined the court’s recommendation to settle the matter out of the court, the Japan Times said.
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
RSS