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In a decision that "highlights the perils of litigating hurt feelings", a court has found an employee wrongly interpreted "petty workplace disagreements" as race-based insults.

Federal Circuit Court Judge Sophie Given found the employee's allegations did have "some factually accurate genesis (even if only a scintilla)", but that she built upon mostly "unremarkable" workplace events, "to cast them in a more nefarious light".

Having "become a disciple" to her version of events over time, Judge Given said, the employee viewed incidents with colleagues "through a prism which, at a minimum, construes interactions as always involving an insult of some kind, and in some instances could only be the result of fabrication by her".

During her employment as a Bing Lee Electronics sales consultant, the employee "came to understand that she was not especially popular or well-liked" among colleagues at the Old Guildford store where she worked, the Judge noted...