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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS