HR Specialist: Pennslyvania Employment Law

Jurors in Pennsylvania are notoriously generous to fired employees. And that’s just the beginning. Aggressive attorneys don’t stop with federal laws like FMLA, ADA and FLSA: they use state and local living-wage statutes, rural codes, plus discrimination and other laws to sue employers for sky’s-the-limit damages. This Pennsylvania-specific newsletter arrives monthly to help sue-proof every aspect of HR. Written in plain English, it’s your insurance policy for staying in step with current interpretations of state and local laws – and staying out of court. Learn more about HR Specialist: Pennsylvania Employment Law and the free report you’ll get when you subscribe...
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Sometimes, when an employee knows he is about to be fired, he tries to link the impending termination with some alleged harassment. The hope: The claim will somehow stop the termination—or at least win a lawsuit.

The best way to defend against such a claim is to have rock-solid reasons for every discharge. If an employee is being terminated for specific rule-breaking, for example, document the incidents. The same goes for terminations because of poor performance or a reduction in force.

Recent case: Bruse Ogilvie worked as a paramedic until his employer terminated him for failing to follow the rules for responding to a call. Ogilvie then claimed that, between the time of the alleged infraction and his firing, his manager made several sexual passes, suggesting that agreeing to have sex might save Ogilvie’s job.

Ogilvie rejected the advances and was terminated.

He sued and tried to link the advances to his termination. But the employer had solid evidence that Ogilvie had broken the rules.

The court said even if Ogilvie could prove that the advances had taken place, there was no evidence connecting them to the termination. Plus, the court said what Ogilvie described was not so severe, humiliating or frequent enough to create a sexually hostile work environment since the advances allegedly took place during his last few weeks on the job and after he already knew he was in trouble. (Ogilvie v. Northern Valley EMS, No. 07-485, ED PA, 2008)