I’ll go ahead and file this one under: “Ya think?”
But perhaps I’m getting out over my skis. So, let’s see what you think.
The employee was a bank teller who filed a charge of discrimination with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against her employer. She later resigned, claiming that she was constructively discharged. In between the two, the employee told a co-worker that she was “planning [her] exit strategy” with her attorney. Around the same time, the employee complained to her supervisor that she believed her supervisor was discriminating and retaliating against her in response to her discrimination complaint because the supervisor suggested that she apply for a promotion.
Yes, you read that correctly.
The employee subjectively believed she was “being pushed into another position and being referred to in the past tense in regards to [her] current position.”
I don’t know what that means either but work with me.
A few months later, the employee informed her employer about an interaction with a hostile bank customer and demanded that her employer address the situation immediately, which it did. Within an hour, two HR representatives met with the employee. The next day, the bank ended the customer’s relationship with the bank. However, consistent with its normal policy, the bank afforded the customer thirty days to transfer her funds before it terminated the customer’s account. The bank also told the employee that if the customer returned to the bank, the employee did not need to assist her. Shortly after that, the employee resigned.
Constructive discharge, she claimed.
But both the trial court and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals — yes, she appealed — disagreed.
“To establish a constructive discharge, an employee must show that the employer knowingly permitted conditions of discrimination in employment so intolerable that a reasonable person subject to them would resign….[The plaintiff] concedes that she was not threatened with termination, encouraged to resign, demoted, subjected to reduced pay or benefits, transferred to a less desirable position, or given a poor job evaluation.[The defendant’s] prompt response to the hostile customer cannot be reasonably described as ‘knowingly permit[ing] conditions of discrimination in employment so intolerable that a reasonable person subject to them would resign.'”
Plus, the Third Circuit couldn’t ignore that the plaintiff was already planning her exit strategy. Case dismissed.
I’ve defended my share of constructive discharge claims. They rarely have teeth and are often as viable as a Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl run. That is to say, they aren’t.