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19 March 2009 / Spencer Keen
Issue: 7361 / Categories: Features , Terms&conditions , Employment
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Crossing the Line

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Should a criminal yardstick be used to judge civil harassment claims? Spencer Keen reports

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In Ferguson v British Gas Trading Ltd [2009] EWCA Civ 46, [2009] All ER (D) 80 (Feb) the Court of Appeal revisited the thorny issue of when conduct could be said to cross the line between “the regrettable and the unacceptable” for the purposes of PHA 1997.

This terminology stems from Majrowski v Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Trust [2006] UKHL 34, [2006] 4 All ER 395, in which the House of Lords held that employers could be liable for harassment committed by their employees in breach of PHA 1997.

Since this decision, the number of harassment claims against employers has increased dramatically and the courts have been called upon to identify the blurred line between the sort of regrettable conduct that each of us is subjected to from time to time and unacceptable conduct which PHA 1997 prohibits. Some of the attempts to define the line between regrettable and unacceptable conduct in

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