Disabled student wins employment tribunal against Abercrombie and Fitch

US clothing retailer told girl she did not meet ‘look policy’

17 August 2009

An employment tribunal has told clothes retailer abercrombie and fitch(A&F) to pay a disabled worker more than ￡9,000 for wrongful dismissal.

Law student Riam Dean, who worked at the US retailer’s London store in 2007, claimed she was asked to move from working on the shopfloor to the stockroom because she did not fit the firm’s image.

Dean was born without her left forearm and told A&F about her disability after getting the job. She said the company agreed she could wear a cardigan to cover the link between her prosthesis and her upper arm.

But once on the shopfloor she was told that she had to take off the cardigan because it broke the firm's "look policy". A&F’s head office then suggested she worked in the stockroom "until the winter uniform arrives”, she told the court.

The tribunal made the compensation award for injury to her feelings, loss of earnings and harassment.

Dean’s solicitor said: “It is all very well having glossy staff handbooks dealing with discrimination procedures – but you must actually apply them."

abercrombie and fitch said the findings of the tribunal were based "on the events of a single day" and that these "were not at all representative of Dean's overall employment with A&F".