22-05-2025
Know your boundaries: take our workplace harassment quiz
From jokes about bald men, to unwanted birthday cards, to wearing trainers in the workplace, employment law tribunal cases can range from the truly traumatic and shocking to the slightly bizarre.
This week a judge in Southampton warned that expressing frustration can legally be considered harassment, after a software engineer successfully claimed that his manager's 'sighing and exaggerating exhales' were discriminatory.
One novelty about the tribunal is that for the most part it is an area of the law where lawyers cannot be the big winners. Much of the justification of launching what were originally industrial tribunals in 1965 was that they would be an efficient and inexpensive method for resolving workplace disputes.
Employment tribunal decisions do not form precedent, but they remain a good
