Our goal is to provide you with the consulting services that will help to protect your company. We offer crucial resources to all businesses in the Spa & Wellness Industry when they are most needed. Our consultants are highly skilled at their craft and want to ensure your protection. The lawyers will provide legal services that comply with each state’s regulations.

What is an employee handbook and why is it necessary?

An employee handbook is a clearly written and comprehensive manual that every successful business should have. By having this handbook, your company will minimize risks of litigation that employers are faced with everyday.

Incorporated in this handbook are policies and procedures of the company, as well as rules and regulations.

What are some important issues that are discussed in an employee handbook?

Compensation
Benefits
Code of Conduct
Dress Code
Licensing Requirements
Insurance
Continuing Education/ Training Requirements
Harassment
Discrimination
Workplace Violence
Drug and Alcohol Abuse

Specifically:
Single harassment incident
When employees’ private and work lives intersect
Complying with the Equal Pay Act (EPA)

Contact: Greenwald Doherty LLP
www.workplaceattorneys.com

Can an employer be held liable for a single harassment incident?

McCurdy v. Arkansas State Police – After employee handbooks were distributed, a police sergeant entered the workplace and proceeded to improperly touch a female dispatcher and began to ask her sexual questions. The dispatcher immediately reported the sergeant, and he was eventually demoted and transferred. As a result of its quick action, the employer “established an affirmative defense that shielded it from liability.”

To establish such an affirmative defense, it must be shown that:

The employer must have exercised reasonable care to prevent and promptly correct any sexually harassing behavior, and

The complaint must have unreasonably failed to take advantage of any of the employer’s preventive or corrective opportunities or otherwise acted to avoid harm.

As you can see in this case, it is important to respond quickly to harassment cases. By responding quickly, the employer was able to assert the Supreme Court’s affirmative defense. This case illustrates how important it is to have anti-harassment policies and complaint procedures in place. It is important to investigate all complaints of sexual harassment, even if it is an isolated single case.

What happens when employees’ private and work lives intersect?

Hope International University v. Rouanzoin – A catholic university considered the Bible its “ultimate constitution” and according to the faculty handbook, professors were to assume the role of Christian exemplars. They were required to abide by the university’s mission that anything that the professors did would affect the students. The school believed that this conduct by the faculty should be required on and off campus, and it had a policy of discharging faculty “in case of grievous moral failure.” Months after a professor, who had been employed for more than 20 years, filed for a divorce from his wife, he was rumored to be having an affair with another female professor in his department. Even though they both denied the claims, the school immediately discharged the male professor. A short time after his divorce was final, he began dating the female professor and they eventually became engaged. A few months later, after talking about his situation to the dean of the school of gradate studies, the ex- professor assured the dean that he had no “relationship” with his fiancée before the divorce. Even though he explained his case, the school decided not to renew his contract. This was due to the perception that he lied when the professors denied their personal relationship and that they had a rule “barring a husband and wife from working in the same department.” The professors sued the school, alleging discrimination based on marital status where they claimed breach of their employment contracts. The court held they “could allege a contact claim not to be fired without objective cause, so a trial was required to decide their claim alleging breach of employment contract.”

This case demonstrates the potential exposure an employer can face once their employees’ personal lives intersect with their work lives. In order to determine if you are faced with the same ruling, you should examine your own policies to see if they comply with your state’s laws.

What happens if employees feel that their employer has not complied with the Equal Pay Act (EPA)?

The Equal Pay Act required employers to pay equal compensation, regardless of gender, for the performance of jobs that require equal skill, effort and responsibility and are performed under equal working conditions.

Wheatly v. Wicomico County – Employees felt that the employer was paying female department heads significantly less than it paid make department heads. The court found that one can have the same title and the same general duties as another employee and still not meet the EPA’s equal skills and equal responsibility requirements. The jobs were considered unequal, despite having the same general core responsibilities.

Employees must be able to validate their compensation levels when they pay different salaries to male and female employees who arguably perform the same work. To avoid litigation, a company must review compensation levels to determine if there are any differentials that exist, and then examine the reasons for them.

What should a company do when an employee alleges unlawful termination?

Storey v. Burns International Security Services – A security guard claimed that his employment was terminated in violation of Title VII because of his national origin (Confederate Southern-American) and religion (Christian). After the security guard’s supervisors told him that under the company’s new diversified-hiring program he would have to remove his “Confederate stickers,” he refused. The court dismissed the guard’s complaint on the grounds that “Confederate Southern-American” did not qualify as a national origin under Title VII, and he failed to establish that displaying the Confederate flag was essential to maintaining a sincerely- held religious belief.

“The Third Circuit noted that a personal need to share a heritage couldn’t be equated with something endemic to national origin or with a religiously mandated observance.”

As you can see, employers should be aware that courts will treat such cases seriously, no matter how frivolous the type of claim might be. Employers should not ignore any case on the assumption that it will just go away.