A woman has been ordered to pay $6,000 after she called a Chinese tradie ‘Jackie Chan’ and sprayed him with a hose while he was installing solar panels.
The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal found on Thursday Nina Bridge ‘racially vilified’ Xining Duan during the altercation in January.
Mr Duan was installing panels on a neighbouring property at Sylvania, in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire, when Ms Bridge told him to put down his tools because it was almost 5pm.
The tribunal heard Mr Duan told Ms Bridge he needed just two more minutes toput the tiles back on the woof and finish his work.
Moments later, Ms Bridge returned with her garden hose and sprayed him, causing the tradie to lose balance on the roof.
Mr Duan asked her to ‘stop attacking’ him, warning she’d cause him to fall from the roof.
He attempted to replace several roof tiles and protect the property from the water.
Ms Bridge then sprayed Mr Duan in the face again, momentarily blinding him as he continued asking her to stop.
Xining Duan had been installing solar panels to a home in a waterfront suburb when a local began spraying him with water and mocking his accent
His colleague, Mr Liu, told the tribunal he saw Mr Duan slip and fall on the roof, pleading for Ms Bridge to stop spraying him.
‘I don’t care. Aren’t you Jackie Chan jumping off the roof?’ Ms Bridge asked him.
After the incident, Mr Duan told Ms Bridge he would call the police and sue her.
The tribunal heard Ms Bridge then told the tradie words to the effect of ‘I don’t understand your English’ and made sounds mimicking his accent.
Mr Duan said he also saw the woman spray water from her hose at his coworker Mr Liu while he was working at an open electrical meter box.
Ms Bridge told the court she had repeatedly asked Mr Duan to ‘pack up and go home’ and was frightened by his ‘shouting’.
She stated she regrettably did make a comment likening Mr Duan to the Chinese actor.
‘His actions were quite theatrical at one point, yelling at me, gesticulating rapidly and I did make a comment about Jackie Chan,’ she told the tribunal.
‘I deeply regret saying this. I understand that this gentleman was deeply offended by this for which I sincerely apologise.
A tribunal heard the resident sprayed him with water from a garden hose, nearly causing Mr Duan to fall from the roof
‘It was a mistake that I deeply regret and I will not repeat. I am sincerely very, very sorry.’
She said Mr Duan was ‘yelling’ in another language and causing her anxiety.
The tribunal, however, did not find her account credible and rejected the claim Mr Duan had ‘screamed and shouted’ at her in the lead-up to the spraying.
Mr Duan initially took the incident to NCAT, requesting compensation for two days of work and a public apology.
A complaint made to the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board – filed to the tribunal – said the incident made Mr Duan feel ‘humiliated’ and ‘mocked’.
‘At the point of the attack I was panicking and scared as I was afraid that she was trying to kill me by making me fall off the roof,’ he said in the complaint.
‘When I went home, I could not fall asleep. When I did, I had nightmares of me falling off the roof. I could not breathe and think properly because of her attack.’
Tribunal members Larissa Andelman and Steven Davison agreed with Mr Duan, finding the incident amounted to racial vilification.
They stated that Ms Bridge acted out of frustration after a long work day, but noted she clearly would have seen Mr Duan when he slipped despite her previous denial.
‘She did it because she was angry and frustrated after a long, noisy day of building work on her neighbour’s house,’ they found in their decision.
‘We are satisfied that Ms Bridge had a clear view of Mr Duan on the roof and saw him slip and fall on the roof after she sprayed him.’
The tribunal ordered Ms Bridge to pay Mr Duan $6000 within 28 days in compensation for ‘loss and damages’.
