Discrimination and Harassment
Discrimination and harassment claims often increase in a down economy. Learn the proper techniques for conducing proper workplace harassment investigations, providing sexual harassment training, and more to reduce claims of employment discrimination and preventing sexual harassment in the workplace.
Q. When, if ever, can our company legally ask an applicant about his or her religious affiliation?
Employees with flimsy cases sometimes decide to sue anyway, acting as their own attorneys. No matter how frivolous such a lawsuit seems to be, face it head on and fight for dismissal.
Typically, employers that lose discrimination lawsuits have to pay the employee’s attorneys’ fees in addition to any jury award. But the opposite isn’t true—employees almost never have to pay their employer’s lawyers unless the case was frivolous.
Former government employee Shari Hutchison has settled her discrimination complaint against Cuyahoga County for $100,000 after winning a landmark decision for gay and lesbian workers.
Here’s some good news for employers that work hard to prevent sexual harassment. Employees who wait decades to report harassment won’t get far if their employer had an effective harassment policy and enforced it.
Employees don’t have forever to sue for wrongful termination—and the clock may start ticking even before their last day on the job. That can mean all the difference in court.
Q. Our union agreement says we must give 48 hours’ notice before dismissing a regular employee. But we have proof that two employees have been harassing—and continue to harass—black and gay employees. In fact, their harassment just caused us to lose a good employee who couldn’t take it any longer. What trumps what?
Sometimes, a single poorly chosen phrase can generate large legal bills, as the following case shows.
Ignoring a discrimination complaint can set in motion an unstoppable litigation train wreck. That’s especially true if you fail to investigate a boss who ends up retaliating against the complaining employee.
Multilink, an Elyria-based supplier of computer networking equipment, is fighting off an EEOC sexual harassment lawsuit that might have been prevented if it had investigated an employee’s initial complaint.
