Woman tried to sue over leaving card as some say ‘after all she’s known as Karen’

A woman has had her UK employment tribunal claim chucked out after complaining she didn’t get a leaving card when she left the company.

But it turned out a card was bought for Karen Conaghan, but only three people had signed it. A colleague believed it would have been more insulting to give her the card than not. But Conaghan claimed that the “failure to acknowledge her existence” at IAG, the parent company of British Airways, was a breach of equality law.

Two men were laid off during “restructuring” at the company during the same time period and neither had received a card. Conaghan, a former business liaison lead at IAG – which also owns airlines Aer Lingus and Iberia – brought 40 complaints against the company for sexual harassment, victimisation and unfair dismissal.

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But the tribunal dismissed every claim with a judge concluding that she had a “conspiracy-theory mentality,” mistaking “normal workplace interactions” for harassment.

In one claim, she said a colleague had copied her use of the word “whiz” in a card for a colleague, but corrected her spelling by writing “whizz” instead.

Conaghan, who joined the firm in 2019, also told how she was asked by a colleague: “Are you taking the p**s, Karen?”

This came after she boasted that she had “done all of the hard work” and now it was his “turn to do some”, The Guardian reported.

Despite the expectation for staff to live within a two-hour commute of the Heathrow office, Conaghan upped sticks to North Yorkshire in September 2021.

She found herself out of a job later that year as part of a restructuring of the organisation, with colleagues saying in evidence that many people also left around the same time.

Judge Kevin Palmer said that although further signatures were gathered on the leaving card after her departure, a former colleague took the view that “it was inappropriate to send such a card to [her] at a later date as she had raised a grievance against him and [another colleague]”.

Many of the acts cited in the claim “either did not happen or, if they did happen, they were innocuous interactions in the normal course of employment.”

The judge said that there was no evidence to suggest that any of Conaghan’s allegations were in any way related to her sex and that one of the allegations was indicative of her “view of normal interactions being something more sinister.”

As the story was shared on social media forums, many rushed to have their say.

In a thread on Reddit, which attracted 11k views, one user commented: “Honestly anyone who would sue for that reason is someone who wouldn’t get a farewell card lol.”

Another wrote: “Did we find the OG Karen? Is she the reason the name Karen was chosen??”

While one added: “Holy s**t her name is actually Karen.”

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