Farting Lawyer Wins $170K Over Being Refused Permission to Work From Home
‘ANGRY AND UPSET’
A lawyer in the U.K. who unsuccessfully sued his employer after a colleague asked him to stop farting in the office has been awarded around $170,000 in compensation over his request to work from home being refused. Tarique Mohammed said in court that he couldn’t stop his flatulence, which was caused by medication he was taking for a heart condition, and that the demands for him to stop were embarrassing and violated his dignity. But a tribunal ruled that his colleague’s request had been made reasonably owing to the size of the office they shared and the repeated number of flatulence incidents. England and Wales’ Crown Prosecution Service accepted it had been unfair to Mohammed by refusing to let him work remotely two days a week or leave work at 4 p.m. to support his management of his heart condition. The tribunal heard his employers’ actions had left him feeling “unsupported and vulnerable, angry and upset.”