World of HR: Irish woman wins suit against boss who regularly shouted ‘potato’ at her

An employer in Leeds, England, recently lost a harassment suit filed by an employee who said her manager bullied her and repeatedly used slurs, including calling her a “potato.”

In the lawsuit, Bernadette Hayes, an Irish woman, alleged that while working as a bookkeeper at a civil engineering firm in northern England, her British boss, Mick Atkins, regularly called her “potato” and “stupid paddy” in a fake Irish accent over the course of six months in 2023 and 2024. Atkins was sometimes joined by another employee, Marcus Smith, and repeatedly harassed Hayes in front of other staff, the Independent reported.

The Leeds Employment Tribunal (a court responsible for hearing workplace claims) ruled that, given the context, the repeated name calling constituted racial harassment. Hayes was awarded the equivalent of $31,000.

Hayes told the tribunal that Atkins was told “on a number of occasions,” that the comments were not funny, according to the BBC. Hayes said that she occasionally joined in at her own expense; the court agreed this was to “make light of the situation.”

“This totally eroded my self respect and my self esteem,” Hayes told the court, according to the Independent, adding that the taunting made her dread going to work. “It made me feel small, insecure, violated, and extremely anxious.”

Hayes said she experienced anxiety, panic attacks, and depression due to the work environment, according to court documents, the Independent reported. “Due to working in a hostile and toxic environment my GP signed me off work with work related stress on 29 July 2024,” she said. Hayes was later dismissed from the company.

“These phrases are overtly linked to race, particularly when considered together rather than in isolation,” Judge Buckley found, the BBC reported. “On that basis, I find that the conduct was linked to race.”

Atkins admitted to the behavior, but told the Daily Mail, “I genuinely thought it was workplace banter. I can see now I got that badly wrong. What I thought was messing about was clearly not taken that way, and I am sorry for the distress it caused Bernie.”