Croydon employment tribunal rules NHS worker Lorna Rooke suffered workplace ‘detriment’

Comparing someone at work to the Star Wars villain Darth Vader is “insulting” and “upsetting”, an employment tribunal has ruled.

A judge concluded that being told you have the same personality type as the infamous sci-fi baddie is a workplace “detriment” – a legal term meaning harm or negative impact experienced by a person.

“Darth Vader is a legendary villain of the Star Wars series, and being aligned with his personality is insulting,” the employment judge Kathryn Ramsden said.

The tribunal’s ruling came in the case of an NHS blood donation worker Lorna Rooke, who has won almost 30,000 after her co-worker took a Star Wars-themed psychological test on her behalf and told colleagues Rooke fell into the Sith Lord’s category.

The tribunal found that the outcome of the online quiz reflected the colleague’s perception of Rooke and it was “little wonder” the NHS employee was upset by the result.

The tribunal, held in Croydon, south London, heard that in 2003 Rooke began working for the NHS Blood and Transplant service as a training and practice supervisor.

In August 2021, members of Rooke’s team took a Star Wars themed Myers-Briggs questionnaire as a team-building exercise.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator sorts people into 16 categories based on how introverted they are, level of intuition, if they are led by thoughts or feelings and how they judge or perceive the world around them.

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