Solid policy and investigation saved company $115K
October 24, 2008 by Sam NarisiPosted in: Age Discrimination, In this week's e-newsletter, Investigations, Latest News & Views
Sometimes, no matter how hard HR tries, a manager will still make stupid decisions. But having good policies and dealing with problems quickly can help help keep legal risks at bay.
In a recent age bias case, the company hired a group of 20-something employees around the same time. The older employees in the department felt the younger folks were getting favorable treatment from their manager — there was even a rumor they were paid more.
One day, a screen saver appeared on a shared computer asking why young employees were higher paid than the people with more experience. In response, the manager made his own screen saver that read: “Because they are younger, dependable and more productive, that’s why!”
After that, one of the employees complained about age discrimination to upper management. Shortly after that, the manager told the higher-ups she should be disciplined for attendance violations, and she was suspended.
Then she sued the company. A jury awarded her $115,000 and the company appealed.
Who won?
The company won when the court overturned the jury’s decision.
Fortunately for the employer, an independent investigation showed the woman was in fact guilty of the attendance violations. Even if the manager raised the issue in the first place for biased reasons, upper management made the final decision objectively, based on the fact that she broke company rules.
Were that not the case, the manager’s irresponsible message on the computer could have gotten the company in serious trouble.
Cite: Furline v. Morrison
Tags: age bias, policy, screen saver
October 29th, 2008 at 10:56 am
I have to say, I would have investigated this a bit more before carrying out the suspension. And maybe HR did and it just isn’t noted here. But I would want to make sure the manager wasn’t picking on that employee for complaining. I would look at the attendance of others in that department and make sure they didn’t have a problem that was just as bad or worse than the employee the manager wanted to discipline. I would also have taken a look at how others had been treated / disciplined in the past in similar situations. Maybe they did all of this, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable letting that kind of discipline happen unless I had thoroughly checked out the situation. Too often managers cloak their anger, bias and discriminatory tendencies by disciplining the employee for a work rule infraction they wouldn’t discipline anyone else for. You have to be SO careful!
Also, I would have nixed the screen saver the second I heard about it. That manager really messed up.
October 29th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
As I read this, I thought it was heading more towards a retalliation suit, but it seems the company had justification behind the termination… although the article does not mention having prior documentation of her policy violations and/or disciplinary actions documented for such violations. Document, document, document… perhaps the “third” rule, or so of HR? I totally agree with R.B.’s comments as well!