Articles
Six Things You Won’t Want to Admit In Court
One of the best ways to learn to handle employment issues is to imagine yourself (or have your managers imagine) how their actions would look if they had to testify about them in court.
With personnel issues that is a very real possibility.
When you realize what you’ll have to admit to, you learn fast.
Here are a few scenarios to consider to get a handle on how to handle common workplace issues and complaints:
“Why ask? No one ever tells you the truth”
This is the reason most often cited for not bothering to do a reference check.
Now fast forward to the time when the employee you didn’t bother to check out punches another employee in the break room.
As it turns out, this is not the first time this particular individual has resorted to violence in the workplace. The attorney for the employee he punched is going to ask, “Well, did you do a thorough background check?”
How is a “No” to that question going to play to a jury?
“He was fired for no reason”
Yes, at will employees can be fired for any or no reason.
Technically, that is.
Just because it can be done, doesn’t make it the smart course of action.
The terminated employee is going to maintain that he was fired because of his legally protected status – race, religion, national origin, sex – and your only response is going to be “That’s not true. I didn’t fire him because of any of those things. I fired him for no reason.”
Juries don’t buy that.
“It was all harmless fun – She never complained about it”
This is a common excuse used when people are accused of sexual harassment. “She” is virtually guaranteed to sue one day and she’ll say she had to go along with it to keep her job.
The important thing to remember about sexual harassment is that the intent isn’t the issue. How it affected the employee is the issue.
“The “Old Geezer” comment was a joke”
While one random comment about an employee being too old probably won’t win a case for the other side in an age discrimination case, it can certainly help their case. Chances are that some other employee has asked the guy when he plans to retire or “Don’t you think it’s time to go play golf and take it easy, old man?”
When those comments are coupled with a situation in which the oldest person has been let go with no particular basis for the decision, the jury may not see things your way. And there are a lot of older people on juries.
“I really thought he would just stop”
This is the comment of every manager who ever ignored a problem until it blew up in their face.
Whether it was sexual harassment, bullying, or an attendance issue, the end result is the same: if you let inappropriate behavior go unchallenged, you are effectively condoning it.
It’s never going to be a strong argument to say you hoped it would go away on its own.
And by the way, the problem employees you hope will just leave on their own, never do.
“In reality, Satisfactory really means Poor”
Giving people a decent evaluation just to pass them on to the manager is going to leave you on the witness stand trying to explain why you fired an employee for poor performance when every single evaluation they ever received was “Satisfactory”.
You can virtually guarantee that you’re going to be asked to read the company’s definition of satisfactory straight from the evaluation form you signed off on and it’s going to say “performs all duties in a satisfactory manner.” Makes you squirm just to think about, doesn’t it?
With proper planning and expertise, every personnel decision you make can be legally sound and defensible.
Call us today to schedule your comprehensive LIFT™ (legal, insurance, financial and tax) Foundation Audit. Normally, this session is $1250, but if you mention this article and we still have room on our calendar this month, we will waive that fee.