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The Employer Handbook BlogHe got fired after threatening to complain to HR. Could that be retaliation?
The plaintiff in this federal court decision I read last night didn’t exactly come off as a model employee. Continue reading
Articles Posted in Retaliation
Would you stop emailing and texting? Just pick up the damn phone for once instead!
If, like me, you deal with HR compliance and employment law issues regularly, you’ve yelled the title of this blog post at others.
(And if you don’t deal with HR compliance and employment law issues regularly, dude, WTH are you doing here?) Continue reading
Rarely, futility and fear of retaliation excuse an employee from complaining about harassment. Here’s one.
When a plaintiff sues, alleging a supervisor subjected them to a hostile work environment, the defendant may avoid liability — even if the harassment actually occurred — if it took prompt remedial action to protect the plaintiff. Also, if a plaintiff fails to take advantage of corrective opportunities the defendant provides, the defendant wins.
But not always. Continue reading
Wait, what? Court says ‘good fit’ isn’t necessarily code for discrimination or retaliation.
Employment lawyers and HR professionals generally preach that employees view “it’s not a good fit” to explain their termination of employment as code for discrimination or retaliation.
It’s HR101.
But yesterday, a federal court of appeals explained that this well-intentioned but often misconstrued rationale isn’t always a thinly-veiled, pretextual excuse to fire someone. Sometimes, people aren’t “good fits.” Continue reading
This guy’s discrimination claims were so bad. (How bad were they?)
They were so bad that a federal judge applied a rarely-used rule of civil procedure to consider summary judgment on its own after identifying for the parties material facts that may not be genuinely in dispute.
Boy, that was about as witty as Groundskeeper Willie’s standup routine at Springfield Elementary.
(Note to self: take after the Clown.) Continue reading
If this isn’t a ringing endorsement for updating your employee handbook, then what is?
I get that employee handbooks are not contacts and are subject to change and all that stuff. But, companies should be prepared to enforce any existing policy in an employee handbook as written.
A multi-billion-dollar company with an overly broad attendance policy learned this lesson the hard way recently. Continue reading
You can’t be retaliated against for NOT reporting sexual harassment. The more you know.
I didn’t even have to go to law school to figure that out. Unfortunately for a plaintiff and her lawyer, they learned this lesson the hard way.
Twice.
THIS action fell just short of possible discrimination and retaliation. (Whew!)
The plaintiff in this action has worked as a human resource specialist. She claimed that, beginning in 2019, her male supervisor made unwelcome sexual comments to her, and, when she reported those comments to his direct supervisor, they were ignored. So the plaintiff says she filed an Equal Employment Opportunity (“EEO”) complaint. According to the plaintiff, nearly two years later, she faced a proposed letter of reprimand.
A proposed what now? Continue reading
Are you in the clear waiting four weeks to fire someone who complained about sexual harassment?
I’ve got some ‘splaining to do before we get into the meat and potatoes. Continue reading
I’m not done with yesterday’s post yet. You need to hear about the retaliation claim!
On Wednesday, I blogged about a woman who worked as a “helper” for a construction company. She alleged that she had to endure misogynist comments from her general manager, who told her in front of others that, since she had “t*** and an a**,” she could not perform certain functions of her job that would otherwise position her for advancement within the company.
But that isn’t the half of it. Continue reading