A British woman sued her former employer for not giving her a farewell card, but lost the case when she found out the card had been bought—though hardly anyone had signed it.
Karen Conaghan had worked as a lead business liaison for International Airlines Group (IAG) since 2019, as The Guardian reported. In her lawsuit, she claimed that the absence of a card was a “failure to acknowledge her existence,” and a breach of equality law.
In court, Conaghan’s former co-worker testified that they did buy her a card, but didn’t give it to her, since only three people had signed it.
“He believed it would have been more insulting to give her the card than not to give her a card at all,” said Judge Kevin Palmer.
A woman sued her former employer after they failed to give her a farewell card—only to discover that a card had been bought, but hardly anybody had bothered to sign it
In total, Conaghan had brought 40 allegations against IAG in her lawsuit, including sexual harassment, victimization, and unfair dismissal.
The court dismissed every claim because they “either did not happen or, if they did, they were innocuous interactions in the normal course of employment.”
Subsequently, the judge said that Conaghan had adopted a “conspiracy-theory mentality,” which meant she was frequently mistaking “normal workplace interactions” as harassment.
An example offered was when the woman wrote “whiz” in a co-worker’s card, then claimed another colleague had copied her when they used “whizz” on a different occasion.
Additionally, when Conaghan said she was doing “all the hard work,” a co-worker asked her, “Are you taking the piss, Karen?”—a popular British term meant to be a joke. At this, she filed a complaint.
The court also heard that the woman had moved to Richmond, North Yorkshire in September 2021, despite the rule that all IAG employees had to stay within a two-hour commute of Heathrow.
Many of the comments poked fun at the situation, especially at the woman’s name
“If you go around saying everyone hates you, sooner or later you’re going to be right,” someone said.
“I wondered who would sue for that reason. Then I read the article and of course… its a f–kin Karen! Lol, perfect!” wrote one user, while another echoed, “Holy sh–t her name is actually Karen.”
Someone else joked, “The three people were likely the manager, the new hire, and the cleaner.”
While this is the only publicly known case of an employee suing IAG, it isn’t the first time the company has made headlines
In May 2022, it was reported that IAG had given “excessive” executive pay, which meant the company’s CEO compensation was 20% or greater than the national average.
According to Proactive, IAG relied on “millions of pounds of taxpayer support during the pandemic, suspended dividends, sold shares to investors to raise funds and sacked thousands of staff.”
The company was also heavily criticized for its refund approach during the pandemic and other customer service issues, including IT outages and widespread flight cancellations.
A study shows potential reasons behind a “conspiracy-theory mentality,” which falls under a general conspiracy mindset
The American Psychological Association reported that “experiences of bullying in the workplace can increase anxiety, paranoia, and hypervigilance to threat in victims”—factors that are associated with conspiracy beliefs.
While not necessarily the case for all professional spaces and situations, a study demonstrated that instances of workplace bullying were positively associated with conspiracy beliefs, an effect that could be explained by paranoia.
In another study, participants who imagined being bullied also had increased beliefs in conspiracy theories.
“First name Karen. Obviously,” read one of the comments
