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.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
Cook Islands officials yesterday said they had discussed seabed minerals research with China as the small Pacific island mulls deep-sea mining of its waters. The self-governing country of 17,000 people — a former colony of close partner New Zealand — has licensed three companies to explore the seabed for nodules rich in metals such as nickel and cobalt, which are used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Despite issuing the five-year exploration licenses in 2022, the Cook Islands government said it would not decide whether to harvest the potato-sized nodules until it has assessed environmental and other impacts. Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
STEADFAST DART: The six-week exercise, which involves about 10,000 troops from nine nations, focuses on rapid deployment scenarios and multidomain operations NATO is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe — without direct US assistance — as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine. The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve about 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest NATO operation planned this year. The US absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the commitment of US President Donald Trump’s administration to common defense and
RSS