Lidl has been ordered to pay former Paralympic athlete Nadine Lattimore €2,000 for disability discrimination after a worker told her to move her guide dog away from a bakery shelf.
Ms Lattimore told the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) that when she explained that she was blind and needed her guide dog, the worker told her she was “concerned about the dog interfering with or licking the food”.
She secured the compensation in a decision published today by the tribunal on foot of her complaint under the Equal Status Act 2000 against Lidl Ireland Gmbh – her second win in an equality case this year over the actions of retail staff while she has been out shopping with her guide dog, Pilot.
Ms Lattimore gave evidence that she was shopping in her local Lidl branch on February 14th this year when the worker intervened and told her to move away from the bakery shelves.
She said she complied but was “not prepared to engage” at that stage, adding that she was already feeling “humiliated, frustrated and upset”.
Then she heard herself being referred to as “the person who had attended previously in-store with a dog who had spoiled bakery products”. She regarded this as a narrative that was “damaging to her character” and set an “unwanted tone” for future visits to her local supermarket, she explained.
When she complained about the treatment, there followed an “embarrassing and humiliating” conversation on the shop floor involving the deputy store manager and the employee, Ms Lattimore said, describing it as “hostile and unprofessional”.
It continued until another employee intervened and explained that Ms Lattimore “was not the owner of the dog previously involved in eating bakery stock, and apologised”.
Ms Lattimore said she was “entitled to the same rights and to access the services in-store as any other customer”.
Under cross-examination, Ms Lattimore accepted the initial contact from the worker was to ask whether she could get the product for the complainant before Ms Lattimore was then asked to move away with the dog.
Lidl accepted Ms Lattimore was asked to move away from the bakery shelf on the day in question because of her guide dog and that a “protracted exchange” ensued between the deputy manager and the complainant when Ms Lattimore raised the issue. However, it denied that this amounted to discrimination.
The company’s director of legal and compliance, Sorcha Finnegan, said the supermarket “took this matter seriously from the outset”. The witness said all the staff involved were “spoken to” and that a disciplinary sanction had been issued.
Ms Finnegan also apologised to Ms Lattimore and invited her to assist the supermarket group with developing its policies and procedures on guide dogs.
The supermarket’s lawyer, Lorna Madden BL, argued that Ms Lattimore had not been treated any less favourably than any other customer making a complaint and that the incident had not amounted to discrimination.
Adjudication officer Kara Turner said Ms Lattimore’s dog was “clearly identifiable as such in its working guide dog uniform” and that the supermarket’s own disability policy recognised that it would be “impossible or unduly difficult” for some people to access its services without their working dogs.
“There was a failure on the part of a staff member to do all that was reasonable to ensure that the complainant had access to the service and obtain goods,” she wrote.
“This failure caused the complainant unnecessary upset and humiliation,” Ms Turner wrote. “Responsibility for the staff member’s failure rests with the respondent,” she added.
However, while the adjudicator found the deputy store manager’s response on the day was “undesirable and unprofessional”, she did not find it amounted to further discrimination.
Upholding the complaint, the Ms Turner awarded Ms Lattimore €2,000.
In June this year, Dealz Ltd was also ordered to pay Ms Lattimore €7,000 for another breach of the Equal Status Act after a security guard at the discount retailer’s branch in the Ilac Centre, Dublin 1, told her that Pilot was “not allowed” in the shop on August 23rd, 2023.
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