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The Employer Handbook BlogThe Assault Was Essentially Undisputed. So Why Did the Harassment Claim Fail?
A company retreat ended with coworkers pulling a man off an employee he sexually assaulted. The company kept him. Continue reading
Articles Posted in Retaliation
A Transgender Employee Says the EEOC’s LGBTQ+ Rollbacks Drove Him Out. When Does Policy Become Harassment?
A former EEOC employee says the agency’s LGBTQ+ rollbacks made his job intolerable, including changes he was required to help implement. A federal court has allowed his harassment, discrimination, and retaliation claims to proceed. Continue reading
A Manager Tied Promotions to Ending HR Complaints. The Employer Still Won.
If a manager has to explain why telling an employee to stop going to HR was legally defensible, the conversation has already gone poorly.
Can Refusing a Settlement Meeting Support a Retaliation Claim?
A boss wanted to discuss settling an employee’s harassment claims without lawyers present. That invitation came with more baggage than the calendar entry suggested. Continue reading
Greetings From Mexico. About That Sick-Leave Policy…
A Mexico vacation while on sick leave is an easy headline. The employer’s defense required a closer look at two separate decisions.
“Not Crazy About White People” Allegedly Appeared in an HR Report. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
The employer hired an outside investigator to examine workplace concerns. A former HR employee later relied on what the investigator allegedly documented to support her own bias claims.
Three Employees Refused the Same Drug Test. Only the White Employee Got His Job Back.
Management enforced its drug-testing rule. The exceptions it made afterward created the bigger problem.
A Manager Couldn’t Follow the Spanish-Language Meetings. His Discrimination Claims Got Lost in Translation.
A 25-minute meeting in Spanish allegedly became a two-sentence summary in English. That may be a workplace communication problem, but this court did not see race or national-origin discrimination.
She Requested a Pregnancy Accommodation. Her Overtime Disappeared. Then Her Job Did.
The employer approved light duty. Seventeen days later, it fired the pregnant employee over an alleged policy violation from two months earlier.
He Allegedly Lied in His EEOC Charge. Firing Him Cost the Employer $250,000.
The employer thought it had caught an employee lying in an EEOC charge. Then it put that conclusion in the termination notice.
That second decision cost considerably more than the first. Continue reading