Jason Braier acted for employer in The Grinch discrimination case

Jason Braier represented the respondent in Toughfar v Search Education Trust, successfully defending claims of direct religious discrimination and harassment arising out of an incident in which the claimant was presented with a Christmas Grinch Award.

Mr Toughfar, a practising Muslim from Morocco, worked for one of the Trust’s schools as a Learning Support Assistant. The school held what were intended to be lighthearted awards ceremonies for its staff at the end of the summer and winter terms. For the latter, a number of themed awards were created (inspired by Googling), which included the Christmas Grinch award for the member of staff who would not get into the Christmas spirit. All staff could vote for any other staff member to win one of the awards. The votes were conducted anonymously through a Googledocs form without providing any reason for a nomination. The vote on all awards was closed a little earlier than intended as the organising staff member was about to go on paternity leave. At the point the vote closed, Mr Toughfar had the most votes for the Christmas Grinch award, with four votes.

An awards ceremony was held among the staff and Mr Toughfar received his award. He was not familiar at that point with the Grinch. He asserted in his claim that the person who presented the awards ensured his was the last award handed out, and pretended to run away from him when presenting it, and that he was met with laughter from staff members during this process. He also suggested that the vote was stopped early in order to ensure that he, as a Muslim, won the award. The Tribunal rejected each of these assertions of fact.

When a colleague subsequently explained the Grinch to Mr Toughfar, he expressed his unhappiness at receiving the award and handed it back. The Trust accepted its return and removed Mr Toughfar’s name from a list of award winners published later that day. In order to resolve a subsequent grievance process, Mr Toughfar was given an apology in writing and subsequently verbally at a staff meeting (complying with a specific request by Mr Toughfar for an apology to be made in that format).

Jason successfully persuaded the Tribunal to dismiss Mr Toughfar’s discrimination and harassment claims. The Tribunal found there was no evidence that the reason for creating the award was his religion, nor that he received votes or the award because of his religion. In dismissing Mr Toughfar’s harassment claim, the Tribunal accepted the conduct was unwanted but was persuaded nothing about the awards ceremony, including the Grinch award, was motivated by religion, and that in any event it was not reasonable for Mr Toughfar to consider his dignity violated or that he was humiliated, offended etc by the awards ceremony.

The judgment has been reported on by a number of national and international media outlets including by Sky News and the Daily Mail. 

18th Apr 2024

Jason Braier

Call 2002