While her original complaint asked for as much as $450,000 in damages, an Australian federal court ruled last week that Rebecca Richardson, a former employee of computer giant Oracle, would be awarded only $18,000 after proving she had been sexually harassed and discriminated against in the workplace.
According to Richardson, the harassment began when she started working with sales representative Randol Tucker in April of 2008. While they began working together simply as coworkers, Tucker soon progressed to statements that Richardson found disturbing and uncomfortable, including a suggestion that the two had been sexually intimate in a past life. He also intimated that their sexual activity would have been good, and began to ask Richardson if she would date him.
While Richardson refused his advances, Tucker became more angry and upset, escalating his harassment until Richardson requested to be reassigned to a different project in August of 2008, after just four months working with Tucker. At the time when she initially requested reassignment, she did not mention a reason, and her request was refused.
Once her request had been refused by company officials, Richardson made a complaint about the sexual harassment she had endured from Tucker. Tucker was disciplined by the company and given a warning in his file. However, instead of treating Richardson as a victim, she began to be treated poorly by the company as well, according to the complaint filed in Australian federal court.
Richardson says that she was demoted to a project that was less vital and less prestigious than the one before she issued her complaint. After several months working in the less prestigious role, she was fed up with her work at Oracle and took a job with one of their competitors for slightly less pay than she had made before.
While the judges in Richardson's case agreed that Tucker had acted in violation of the law and that Oracle had failed to sufficiently protect her from sexual harassment and retaliation, they also ruled that her request for damages was excessive. According to judges, the new role Richardson took on was only a slight decrease in pay, and the $18,000 she was paid would represent the true extent of her damages from having been discriminated against by Oracle in the workplace.
According to Richardson, her performance had been excellent for 10 years, and the company's refusal to fire Tucker stemmed from the fact that the sales representative was on the verge of closing a seven figure deal for the company.
Source: fedcourt.gov.au
