PhPhPhtttt. Farting Chair Cause for Damages?

From The Guardian, [h/t to Brian Ferguson]:

A former deputy headteacher whose "farting" chair made her the butt of jokes in the playground and the staffroom has lost her claim for £1m in damages, it emerged yesterday.



Sue Storer, 48, said the chair she was given at Bedminster Down secondary school in Bristol let out a humiliating noise every time she sat down, causing her frequent embarrassment, especially on parents' evenings. She also claimed the seating issue was part of a sustained campaign of sexist bullying.



... The art teacher, who left her £48,000-a-year post in September 2005, had claimed constructive dismissal and sex discrimination and was seeking £1m in compensation from Bristol city council based on 17 years of lost earnings and pension revenues. She said that she had inherited an old, uncomfortable chair when she started at the school, which was later replaced with the newer, but much noisier model.



"[The chair] was very embarrassing to sit on," she told the two-day tribunal. "I asked for a chair that didn't give me a dead leg or make these very embarrassing farting sounds." Mrs Storer said she was horrified not to be given a new chair when a delivery arrived in May 2002.



... The tribunal ruled she had not been unfairly dismissed or discriminated against. It also decided that Mrs Storer should have arranged a new chair for herself.



In the judgment, the tribunal's chairman, Michael Griffiths, said: "The claimant asserts that the provision to her two male colleagues of new chairs ... was discriminatory. We find that by reason of her status and seniority, she was free to arrange for the purchase of such necessary office equipment ... without prior reference to any of her colleagues."

Good application of the Economic Analysis of Law:

• What is the risk?
• Who is the least-cost bearer of the risk?

The tribunal said the complainant was the least-cost bearer of the risk since she could have ordered a new chair.