An employee complained to her supervisor that a co-worker had been sexually harassing her. The allegations were pretty severe: The woman claimed he consistently made sexual comments, touched her inappropriately and asked her to view pornography on his office computer.

The company suspended the co-worker and investigated. The conclusion: All the allegations were true. The man was suspended without pay and warned that he’d be fired if the conduct continued.

But the harassment didn’t stop and the woman complained again. The co-worker was suspended and warned a second time.

After that, the employee quit and sued the company for failing to put a stop to the harassment.

The company argued that it took appropriate disciplinary action in response to her complaints. But the judge didn’t buy it.

Two complaints should have been enough for the co-worker to lose his job. The woman testified that she was no longer comfortable coming to work with him around, and the company’s actions didn’t convince him to change his behavior.

What’s the best way to handle employees who’ve been accused of sexual harassment? There’s no easy answer. But the courts look to see if the company does something that could reasonably be expected to stop the harassment.

In this case, the company’s empty threats weren’t enough.

Cite: Engel v. Rapid City School District

It’s becoming more common for women to hear sexually inappropriate comments at work, according to a recent survey by the Novations Group.

Such comments were heard by 38% of the women polled, compared to 22% who reported the same in a similar survey last year.

Meanwhile, almost half (45%) of men have heard derogatory sexual talk. That’s the same as last year.

Some more bad news in the report:

• 35% of employees have heard a co-worker use a racial slur
• 27% have seen someone get taunted because of age
• 23% heard disparaging remarks about a co-worker’s sexual orientation, and
• 10% have seen someone ridiculed because of a disability.

In one recent case, a woman sued after she was fired from her secretarial job. One of her duties was to bring coffee to the managers in the office. She refused to do it. Because of that, and other performance and attitude issues, she was terminated.

She sued, claiming that asking her to serve coffee was a “reinforcement of an out-dated gender stereotype” — and therefore, sexual harassment.

The company argued that it was part of her job and both male and female employees in the same position had to do it.

The court agreed and threw the case out. Since both genders were treated equally, there was no sexual harassment.

Cite: Klopfenstein v. National Sales and Supply, LLC

The EEOC recently looked into a sexual harassment charge against Wall Street firm SAC Capital. A former employee claimed his boss forced him to take female hormones (apparently, to help him do his job better). That caused him to start wearing women’s clothes at the office and damaged his relationship with his wife.

The company denied the allegations (duh). The EEOC stepped in to investigate last year.

The investigation has now been dropped. According to the EEOC, the agency was “unable to conclude that the information obtained establishes violations of the statutes.” In other words, they aren’t buying the guy’s story.

The employee now has the option to sue on his own, though we don’t know if the suit will get very far. Stranger things have certainly happened, and it’s always possible the EEOC was wrong. We’ll let you know if the guy gets his day in court.

A woman filed a sexual harassment claim against her employer. At the center of the case was a radio program played on a communal stereo in the office. According to the woman, every morning her co-workers (mostly male) listened to a radio show that contained extremely graphic and offensive sexual content (especially to women), including discussions about sex acts, masturbation and pornography.

Allegedly, this went on for the entire three years she worked for the company. During that time, she said, she complained to the office manager, who repeatedly told her it was a public radio and she could change the station if she wanted to. But when she did, she said, someone immediately changed it back.

Harassing, or just offensive?

At first, the company won the case. The court found that the conduct wasn’t directed at the woman and that male and female employees were equally exposed to the offensive content. Therefore, there was no sexual harassment.

But an appeals court reversed, on the grounds that the content was “more degrading to women than to men.” So even though everyone had to listen to the show and nothing was directed at the employee specifically, it still counted as harassment “based on” her sex.

Legal semantics aside, the real mistake the company made was the manager’s weak response to the woman’s complaint. Of course, allegations about personal harassment need to be dealt with, but courts have also consistently ruled that just the presence of language or content that’s offensive to one gender, race, etc., is enough to bring a harassment or discrimination suit forward.

Cite: Reeves v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc.

Here’s a recent case where a company said “no” – and the silence ended up costing it half a million dollars.

Several employees at a department store in California complained that they were being harassed by the store’s assistant manager. After the investigation, the man was transferred to a store in Colorado. No one at that store was told why he was being transferred.

Then, two complaints came from the Colorado store. After the first one, the man was warned, and after the second, he was fired. All of the women involved sued the company, claiming it didn’t do enough to prevent the harassment.

Eventually the company settled out of court for $500,000. Said the EEOC: “By failing to notify the Colorado store about this man’s sexual harassment in California at the time of his transfer to Colorado, [the employer] permitted its employees to go in harm’s way.”

Appropriate steps

It isn’t easy to know what to do after a harassment investigation. Even if a company finds that harassment likely occurred, termination isn’t always the next step. Transferring the accused to a new location or department (usually to a non-managerial position) might be the best solution, if it looks like that will stop the harassment.

Also, companies need to think carefully about who they tell. It’s smart to keep things on a “need to know” basis – spreading the word about accusations could end in a defamation suit. In this case, the smart thing would have been to at least tell the new store’s management about the previous incidents, so they’d know what to look out for.

Cite: EEOC v. Joslin Dry Goods Co.