HRLegalNews.com » evidence http://www.hrlegalnews.com Up-to-the-minute cases and law impacting HR Mon, 11 Jul 2011 18:17:34 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc Supervisor asked for evidence of harassment — alleged victim sues http://www.hrlegalnews.com/supervisor-aked-for-evidence-of-harassment-alleged-victim-sues/ http://www.hrlegalnews.com/supervisor-aked-for-evidence-of-harassment-alleged-victim-sues/#comments Tue, 10 Mar 2009 11:00:39 +0000 Sam Narisi http://www.hrlegalnews.com/?p=1125 Harassment complaint investigations aren’t always clear-cut — they often end up in “he said, she said” territory, with managers unsure of who to believe or what to do. Here’s how one company handled that situation and avoided legal trouble.

An employee complained to an upper-level manager that her supervisor had sexually harassed her. The response she got: The manager asked for witnesses who could corroborate or other evidence of wrongdoing.

She had nothing to offer, so the company decided it couldn’t do anything.

Eventually, however, another employee complained about the same supervisor. This time, the company got enough proof to investigate and then fire him.

But it didn’t end there: The original complainant sued, claiming she was subjected to more harassment after the company failed to investigate her complaint.

So was the manager’s response to the complaint appropriate? Yes, according to the judge. Companies can’t be expected to automatically believe every complaint they receive — that’s how innocent supervisors get mistakenly fired.

Without anything more to go on, there wasn’t much the manager could do.

Cite: Adams v. O’Reilly Automotive, Inc.

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