Rebuking someone to the point of letting them break down is power harassment. I filed this suit to let it widely be known to society how much such language and actions hurt people, as I think my husband is not the only victim.

5 hours????? I had to re-read it just to be sure. The perpetrator should have been arrested and dealt with severely. Yet, I feel the victim is at fault here too, for putting up with the barrage for that long.

This is the authority one person in a more senior position can have over another in Japan.

If anyone talk down to you ^ fight back! Don't let the bully win. Boss or no Boss, Its just a job!

I hope she wins.

Many J businesses have no formal procedures to address work-place bulling harassment. Or even HR .

You do something illegal, you pay a fine, or serve time.

You make a mistake, you're told so and corrected.

Length-y berating is psychotic; outside basic civility.

Working for a person does not equate with giving up your basic rights.

No matter what was the problem, 5 hours of harassments is obviously not justified and something has to be done about it, if the problem is serious enough then the person should be referred to human resources and maybe fired, this is just being used as a stress relief for his boss.

In many foreign countries, especially in the West, the wife would win this dispute. And quite possibly there would have been an out-of-court settlement, because no one wants such negative publicity.

But here? It will be long discussed why this was so. There will also be a long discussion as to why this could have happened. It will also take a long time to address whether it could have been prevented and how. Some kind of mascot will be created. Quite possibly we will learn that the husband did not perform his job duties adequately as an employee and so was "rightfully" disciplined by his supervisor for 5 hours. This whole argument will drag on for a long time and based on my experience, it may well end up that in the final analysis, someone will take a few, deep bows, a few 申し訳ございません and that will be it. I would like to be wrong and believe that the corporate and work culture will change.

I thought this sort of behaviour was only in films and TV series... what did the poor sod do, drop a cup of water on the floor?

@Robert Cikki i agree with your point. In my own case i quit my Japanese company due to unnecessary burden put on employees with directionless goals . Outstanding performance is not recognized and only relationships matter in Japanese companies. If you are bad on PR then its a lost cause in J company.

Saw a similar situation between two Japanese coworkers when I was in Tokyo. One was pretty rubbish at his job, and the other was fairly relentless in his feedback and criticism.

The one with performance issues escalated it beyond the local country manager to the country managers boss who was at head office overseas and it blew up big time. Unfortunately for him, he was one of the first to go when a restructure happened, as head office now knew of his performance issues.

I have a power harassing pr*ck of a boss here. The other day I walked out of a meeting we were having due to his condescending tone and attitude. He freaked out, worried that I was going to tell upper management. Been all good-goody to me since then. These people are bullies who crumble when someone stands up to them. The problem in Japan is the education system indoctrinates you to never speak up.

Hopefully she wins the case, but unfortunately the only thing that will happen once the case has finished is that a few more 'STOP pawahara' posters will be put up in soulless company corridors.