Ex-employee forced to pay $46,900 for intentionally coughing on her

A British employer has been ordered to pay the equivalent of $46,900 in damages to an employee who allegedly coughed in the direction of an employee to mock her after she raised health fears at the start of the pandemic.

“He knows my health condition. He knew I had no immune defenses due to the medication I was supposed to take, and he purposely coughed in my face. I'm shaking. I am not a sensitive person […] But it really got to me,” the former employee lamented before Judge Tobias Vincent Ryan, according to “The Guardian” on Tuesday.

The incident happened in March 2020, just a week before the UK's first ever lockdown, when Kevin Davies, 62, was working with a woman at Cawdor Cars, a car sales and property business in Newcastle.

The woman, who suffers from psoriatic arthritis and an autoimmune disease, asked her colleagues to stay away to follow public health recommendations at the time, according to British media.

Instead, the employer “deliberately and loudly coughed at her, saying she was joking,” according to the labor judge, who considered the gesture an attempt to “taunt and intimidate” the employee. Guardian”.

Following the incident, the woman resigned three months later, after being left “at the end of her rope” by the situation, according to the magistrate.

“She resigned at least in part because she was the victim; that was a central and important factor in his decision. She felt she had been shown the door in part because of her complaints. She was right,” the judge reported.

According to “The Guardian”, the latter was ordered to pay the employer and his company a total of 26,438.84 pounds sterling, or more than $46,900 in damages, as well as for injury to feelings and unfair dismissal.