You are the president of a HumTech, a technology consulting company, and have re

Question

You are the president of a HumTech, a technology consulting company, and have received some startling news. Richard is one of your information technology supervisors. You learn that Richard has been emailing Brenda, an information technology technician who reports to him, pornographic photos and sexually-directed jokes. Brenda told Richard to stop, but Richard continued to send the emails to Brenda. In response to Richard’s conduct, Brenda abruptly quit and filed a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Preventing sexual harassment has been a major priority for you, and you have established extensive complaint procedures, dispute resolution mechanisms, and sexual harassment prevention policies. You are surprised that Brenda didn’t use these resources before seeking legal redress. Evaluate whether your company may be held liable for Richard’s conduct.

Explanation / Answer

Answer: According to the principle of “Respondent superior”, the employers are liable for the actions of the employees which are within the scope and course of employment. In this case Richard has been using the company’s resources to sexually harass a colleague. Hence the company by the principle of respondent superior is liable for the actions of Richards. But at the same time in this case there are extensive compliant procedures which are in place at the company and Brenda has directly approached EEOC without using them. This can also indicate the lack of awareness and lack of trust of Brenda about these procedures. But as there are procedures in place and the company has taken preventive measures for stopping harassment hence the company in this case is not liable for the Richards behavior as Brenda did not made use of these procedures. The companies are considered to be liable for the employee’s actions in the case they were aware about the problem and did nothing to prevent it.

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