If your coworkers get on your nerves for comparing you to a famous movie villain, you might be able to make it part of a case. It worked for a woman in the U.K. who was just awarded the equivalent of $40,000.
The BBC reported this week that Lorna Rooke, a woman who began working for the National Health Service in 2003, was awarded that amount after an employment tribunal in Croydon, an area in south London, addressed her decision to leave the NHS. She she resigned in 2021.
Darth Vader, a villain from the “Star Wars” film series, played a part in that decision, according to the BBC’s report. Vader is a sinister and malevolent force in the first three films from the science fiction franchise, released in the 1970s. His background as Anakin Skywalker is explored in three prequel films released in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Rooke’s complaint stems back to a time when her team took a personality assessment with a “Star Wars” theme. While the BBC described the test as a “Myers-Briggs” time assessment, The Guardian noted that the Myers-Briggs Company said it was not actually one of their assessments.
In Rooke’s office, one of her coworkers – identified by The Guardian as Amanda Harber – filled out the assessment on Rooke’s behalf while she was taking a personal phone call. When she came back, Harber announced that Rooke had the same personality type as Darth Vader.
While the description of this personality type as a “very focused individual who brings the team together,” doesn’t sound too bad, being compared to a famous villain also didn’t feel great. Rooke listed it as one of the reasons why she resigned after more than a decade with the blood donation department at NHS, an environment where she said she felt “unpopular” and suffered from low mood and anxiety.
Judge Kathryn Ramsden agreed that the categorization was inappropriate.
“Darth Vader is a legendary villain of the ‘Star Wars’ series, and being aligned with his personality is insulting,” she said. The tribunal found that the incident was a “detriment” that caused harm and a negative impact for Rooke. While she won her case, the BBC said she lost claims for “unfair dismissal, disability discrimination, and failure to make reasonable adjustments.”
Rooke’s case might have played out in the U.K., but similar cases about negative workplace environments have also worked out for employees in the U.S. For example, the 2019 case of a Kentucky man who had coworkers threw him an office birthday party he didn’t want. He was fired when he complained, but a jury eventually awarded Kevin Berling $450,000 for the ordeal. Audacy’s “Something Offbeat” covered the case in 2022.