What form of legal action is being taken by Ellen Elphick against the Royal ballet school?

Question

Her accusations include body shaming and toxic pressure to lose weight but what forum would this be in and what type of procedure is it? What laws is it under?

Answer 1

This is a developing story, and so it is not clear where the legal action will end up, or indeed where it is right now - it's not obvious that there is any litigation yet, perhaps only the spectre of it. The leading solictor, Dino Nocivelli, has a blog entry updated 11 September 2023 describing some background to the alleged abuse, although not any details of the specific case. This includes:

Case law has held that there are three key criteria in cases involving verbal abuse as noted above and these are:

• Conduct – in the first instance, the ballet dancers will have to show the abuse took place. There must then be words said to the ballerinas which were unjustifiable or for which there is no reasonable excuse.
• Mental – there must be an intention to cause severe mental or emotional distress by the words. Although it would appear to be easy to show intention, you would be surprised by the arguments submitted by Defendants as shown in the racial abuse cases at Chelsea Football Club and more recently by John Yems at Crawley Town Football Club.
• Consequence – there must be a psychiatric injury or physical harm from the conduct, rather than mere distress. A number of ballet dancers have suffered from eating disorders and therefore this element would be achieved.

This language suggests a claim for the intentional infliction of emotional harm, since the words are very similar to a remark from Lady Hale and Lord Toulson in Rhodes v OPO & Anor [2015] UKSC 32 at paragraph 88:

We are inclined to the view, which is necessarily obiter, that the tort is sufficiently contained by the combination of a) the conduct element requiring words or conduct directed at the claimant for which there is no justification or excuse, b) the mental element requiring an intention to cause at least severe mental or emotional distress, and c) the consequence element requiring physical harm or recognised psychiatric illness.

"The tort" here means the cause of action recognized in Wilkinson v Downton [1897] EWHC 1 (QB), and called by such names as "intentional infliction of mental shock", "intentional infliction of emotional harm", "infliction of psychiatric harm", or "the Wilkinson v Downton tort". In other places, such as the U.S. or Canada, it might be called "intentional infliction of emotional distress", but possibly defined slightly differently. In any event, the names are pretty suggestive of what is going on.

This is a cause of action in civil law. If there is any litigation, the actual statement of claim might be more complex and involve other alleged breaches of the respondents' duty of care. If it went to a court, the allocation of which court would depend on factors including the complexity of the case and the amount claimed. It might well be the High Court. But we will have to wait and see.