Havan is ordered to indemnify a former employee in BRL 50,000 for racial prejudice – 02/05/2023 – Panel

Havan was condemned to pay BRL 50,000 in moral damages to a former employee who said she had suffered racial prejudice from her boss and heard phrases such as “improve that face so you don’t go to jail” and “improve that face so you don’t get some lashes”.

The decision against the retailer is at first instance and can be appealed. The Panel has tried to contact the company since Friday to find out if Havan wanted to speak out or if it intended to appeal, but has not received a response.

In the action, an employee hired by Havan in August 2018 as a cashier at the store in São José (SC) claims to have suffered racial prejudice from her hierarchical superior.

In addition to the phrases referring to punishments applied against slaves, the boss would have shown the former employee a photo of a former black slave and said: “I found a photo of you on Facebook. Get better, right? If it’s not you, it’s a relative of yours”.

The former cashier would have reported the case to an HR manager. The boss received a disciplinary warning, but, a month later, the former employee was changed in her role and manager.

In his decision, labor judge Fabio Augusto Dadalt states that the former employee’s complaint “is not freshness.” “It’s not ‘mimimi’. It’s not a joke. It’s not funny. It’s not nice. It shouldn’t be accepted.”

“It is a crime of racial injury to tell a black man that he will be tied to a log and be whipped, show him a photo of any black woman and say that it is him or a relative of his there in the photo”, says the judge. “I believe that the complainant had, yes, her morals offended by acts practiced by her then boss, who, based on her skin color, black, offended her dignity, her honor, her condition as a human being; caused her an undeniable moral damage.”

Dadalt partially accepted the requests made by the former employee, who initially asked for R$ 1 million in moral damages. The labor judge awarded BRL 50,000 and decided that the costs will be paid by Havan, in the amount of BRL 1,200.

Judge Patrícia Sant’anna, director of Anamatra (National Association of Labor Magistrates), praised the decision. “Judge Fábio Augusto Dadalt’s sentence demonstrates that racism, in our society, is structural and that there is no longer any room to admit it, so that we have an intimate, ethical and social duty to strongly reject it.”

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