Distress (870,-666)

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Keywords: Distress
Total judgments found: 2

• Judgment 4261

  
  129th Session, 2020
  European Patent Organisation
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR
  Summary: The complainant challenges the withdrawal of a decision to assign her additional duties on a temporary basis.

  Consideration 12

  Extract:

  It is a well-established principle in the Tribunal’s case law, as was recently stated in Judgment 4178, consideration 14, citing Judgment 3353, consideration 26, that “[a]n organisation must care for the dignity of its staff members and not cause them unnecessary personal distress and disappointment where this could be avoided”. In the present case the complainant, who held a senior position within the EPO, agreed to take on additional duties subject to certain conditions a significant number of which were directed towards relieving her of some of the burdens of doing so. The complainant received unqualified assurances that her conditions concerning support would be met. The fact that she would take on those additional duties was made known widely within the Organisation. It cannot be doubted, in the Tribunal’s opinion, that the abandoning of this arrangement because the unqualified assurances could, in fact, not be met would have caused the complainant considerable distress and disappointment, particularly having regard to the fact that the arrangement had been widely publicised within the Organisation. The complainant is entitled to moral damages[.]

  Reference(s)

  ILOAT Judgment(s): 3353, 4178
  

  Keywords:

  distress; moral injury; respect for dignity;
  

  Judgment keywords

  Keywords:

  complaint dismissed; distress; respect for dignity;
  

  
  
  

• Judgment 4239

  
  129th Session, 2020
  World Health Organization
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR
  Summary: The complainant challenges the decision to terminate her appointment for health reasons and claims that the compensation she received for her service-incurred injury is grossly inadequate.

  Consideration 26

  Extract:

  [T]here is a possibility that the breach of WHO’s duty of care concerning the complainant when she returned to Geneva has led or contributed to the professional and personal circumstances in which the complainant now finds herself. An inference can readily be drawn that the complainant knows that, had she received appropriate treatment immediately on her return to Geneva, her grave present predicament, arising so early in her adult life, might not have come about and also she believes WHO should have done more to support and help her. It cannot be doubted that these matters have caused and will continue to cause the complainant considerable distress. In the special circumstances of this case, the complainant is entitled to a significant award of moral damages that the Tribunal assesses in the sum of 180,000 United States dollars.

  Keywords:

  distress; duty of care; moral injury;