“If you give me my job back, I will be your slave”

Thursday 20 September 2018

A bank administrator who offered to be the “slave” of a manager she claimed had bullied her, in return for a job she had previously resigned from, has failed in her claim for unfair dismissal damages.

Ex-BNP Paribas employee of 10 years Marta Capps resigned from her role at the firm in July last year after being offered a position at another financial institution.

However, just three days after doing so, the job offer was withdrawn because she told her prospective employer not to contact her manager as part of the pre-screening process. 

In a phone call, Ms Capps asked her former manager, who was not named, to reinstate her. He then approached HR about the idea, but they refused to do so.

Ms Capps subsequently took an unfair dismissal claim to the Employment Tribunal, arguing that she had only sought a new job because she had been “bullied and harassed” by her manager.

Pictured: Deputy Chair of the Employment and Discrimination Tribunal, Advocate Mike Preston, found against Ms Capps.

She gave the tribunal a diary detailing around 24 incidents of such “bullying”, including allegations that he had given her tasks to complete in “unrealistic timeframes”, ignored her requests for help, and deliberately denied her a bonus “to get rid” of her. 

But he denied the claims, which had already been thrown out following investigation by an independent HR agency. According to the manager, the pair had always enjoyed a “good” working relationship, which even involved attempting to negotiate a bonus for her with senior management despite her ‘poor’ rating that led to the initial refusal.

He added that Ms Capps announced her intention to leave “because the new job involved a significant pay rise” rather than due to any conflict between the two.

More detrimental to Ms Capps’ case was that she had appeared “very keen to stay” working with someone she claimed had mistreated her. A transcript of the phone call in which she asked for her job back revealed she went so far as to tell her manager: “If you give me my job back, I will be your slave, I promise.”

“Whilst this emotive language was most likely an unfortunate turn of phrase, the content of the conversation and the fact that the claimant was asking [redacted] to take her back gave the lie to the very serious allegations that she later made against him. The Tribunal was unimpressed with the Claimant as a witness,” Advocate Preston noted in his judgement. 

He added that there was “nothing” in any of Ms Capps’ complaints “as a matter of fact” and that he had “no hesitation” in rejecting the claims.  

Ms Capps made a further claim that she should have been paid for the days she was off sick during her notice period, but the tribunal concluded that BNP Paribas had no contractual obligation to do this.

“In all the circumstances, the claims of the Claimant are dismissed and as a consequence no award is made in her favour.”