In a recently released full judgement, a judge said that using the word about a man’s lack of hair could breach equality laws because it is ‘inherently related to sex’
The High Court has ruled that calling a man bald is tantamount to commenting on a woman’s breasts.
A judge said the word could breach equality laws, adding that it is “inherently related to sex”. The ruling at the highest civil court in the land comes after electrician Tony Finn claimed to have been the subject of sexual harassment at the British Bung Company in 2019. He accused his supervisor Jamie King of calling him a “bald c***” during a heated row on the shop floor.
He took them to an Employment Appeals Tribunal following his 2021 dismissal. The tribunal ruled in his favour in February 2022, which was appealed by his former employers. The company’s appeal was dismissed in November 2023. They had argued that because both men and women can be bald – whether it be a personal choice or as a result of a medical condition – the use of the word towards a man is not in breach of equality laws.
Mrs Justice Naomi Ellenbogen DBE, who oversaw the appeals, said that the remarks were “inherently related to sex”. The ruling will allow the claimant to receive compensation.
Mr Finn won his claims of unfair and wrongful dismissal in the February 2022 ruling. It was also proven that he was subjected to detriments and sex harassment due to the baldness comment. His employer had argued: “In order to be related to sex, it would have to apply to that sex to the exclusion of the other.
“Even if it were the case that 99 per cent of those who were bald were male, the existence of the one percent who were female would mean that the act of which complaint was made could not be related to sex. Baldness is not related to sex as both men and women can be bald, as, no doubt, women with alopecia, those receiving chemotherapy and others who shave their heads for a variety of religious or cultural reasons could vouchsafe.”
According to the judge’s comments, she agreed that commenting on a man’s lack of hair was equivalent to speaking about the size of a woman’s breasts. In concluding, rightly, that baldness is more prevalent in men, the tribunal was not importing questions of disparate adverse impact into its reasoning.
“Rather it was recognising the fact that the characteristic by reference to which Mr King had chosen to abuse [Mr Finn] was more prevalent in people of [Mr Finn]’s gender, more likely to be directed at such people, and, as such, inherently related to sex”, the judge said.
