Folks, let me give you a little free Friday HR pro tip: If a female employee complains to a female manager that another male manager is sexually harassing her, it’s not ok to for the female manager to respond thusly, “He’s a guy and you work with guys. Ignore it and…
Articles Posted in Sexual Harassment
Dude, you were fired for fellatio jokes, not your disability.
Geez! What’s gotten into me this week? Even by The Employer Handbook editorial standards, which are lower than Title VII’s religious accommodation undue hardship test. [I’ll be here all week. Sorry.] First, a 1000+ word blog post on ADA telework, followed by two cheeky posts on bad interview questions and the…
He filed for custody of the kids; she filed a sexual harassment lawsuit
I couldn’t make this set of facts up if I tried. More after the jump… * * * Pay attention, Hollywood Ok, here goes nothing… According to the court’s opinion, Dr. Sharon Waltz worked on and off for Birmingham Healthcare, Inc. and Synergy Medical Solutions, Inc., for a little over…
In the County of Yolo, 100 hugs and a painfully awkward kiss aren’t sexual harassment #YOLO
What else is there to blog about after reading a federal court opinion about Yolo (You Only Live Once) and sexual harassment? Geez. Last night, I could have peed plutonium while flaming monkeys sprang forth from my word hole, and I still would have blogged Yolo. More on Yolo after…
Court: It’s ok to try to hit a co-worker with your car after grabbing her crotch (twice)
The opinion contains the words “fingered,” “genital area,” and “sexual assault,” plus an allegation that the assailant tried to hit the plaintiff with her car in the mall parking lot. But, the court concluded that there was no sexual harassment, because none of these events “affected the conditions of her…
Real and Spectacular! A true Seinfeld-ian claim of sexual harassment
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RvNS7JfcMM Before law school was even on the radar for me, I knew that coitus on office furniture was a workplace no-no. And ignorance is not a defense. But, maybe Seinfeld isn’t a thing in Indiana. You see, Connie Orton-Bell worked at a maximum security prison in Indiana. One day,…
Dating app maker Tinder sued for, you guessed it, sexual harassment
I’m often asked, “Eric, where do you find this stuff?” Why TMZ, of course. Break ’em off TMZ: “Whitney Wolfe claims in a new lawsuit — obtained by TMZ — she was mercilessly brutalized by the other execs who wanted to remove her title because no one would take a…
Court: Two butt grabs from a male boss would not offend an objectively, reasonable female
Welcome to Alabama, where they see your one-grope rule and raise you two grabs of the derriere. Why? Because, according to this recent federal court opinion, the average female employee would not find getting her ass grabbed twice by a male supervisor to be offensive. Now remember, that for a…
Yes, you can have a hostile work environment based on sexual stereotyping.
We’ve talked a fair amount about sexual stereotyping at the ole Handbook. Here I discussed the cluster created by offering crap assignments to a male employee because he fails to conform to a male stereotype. And of course, we have my “Ravishing Rick Rude” theory of same-sex harassment, which a federal…
Your contractor is a sexual harasser? You may still be on the hook.
Generally, a typical sexual harassment claim involves a supervisor or manager or co-worker making unwelcome sexual advances towards another employee. But what if, instead of the harasser being one of your employees, it’s an independent contractor. Does that absolve your company from liability? Is it a valid defense if one…