Agency And Discrimination Law

Agency And Discrimination Law - You Decide
Travis J. Washington
MGMT 520

Q1. CEO of TEDDY’S SUPPLIES Memo To: CEO of Teddy's Supplies From: Legal Counsel CC: Travis Washington Re: Termination of Miss Virginia Pollard Date: April 3, 2015 as the employer of Virginia Pollard, Teddy’s Supplies is liable for gender discrimination which is a violation of Title VII. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits any form of employment discrimination against new applicant workers, employees, and union members on the ground of race, sex, nationality, religious beliefs or gender during employment. The law prohibits any form of discrimination in employment because of sex, whether it is made against a person who may be male, female, homosexual or same sex discrimination. Regardless of several given scenarios, the law demonstrates that sex is synonymous to gender. It is inadequate that the victim of the discrimination is a male or a female in the work environment. There was an offer of settlement to Miss Pollard, the company has to reinstate her to her former position also to include all her back wages and benefits appurtenant thereto. If reinstatement is not loner possible due to the strained relationship between Miss Pollard and Teddy’s Supplies, then payroll reinstatement can be made possible wherein she will still be considered as an employee of the company but is no longer required to report to work on a daily basis. http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/metropol.html
Q2. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits any form of employment discrimination against new applicant workers, employees, and union members on the ground of race, sex, nationality, religious beliefs or gender during employment.
Q3. The case of Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson is applicable to Pollard where the Supreme Court ruled that hostile work environment sex discrimination is an actionable wrong under Title VII. The fact that the Vice President of the bank made sexual advances against complainant created a hostile work environment and is a form of a sexual harassment covered by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The severe and pervasive conduct of the vice president who repeated sexually abused on the victim in exchange for sexual favors at the office qualify the acts as punishable under Title VII. Here, the acts of the Teddy’s workers against Pollard constitute HWE sexual harassment through the vulgar sexual jokes and teasing. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase. In Faragher v. City of Boca Raton and Burlington Industries v. Ellerth, the Supreme Court held that there is a new affirmative defense for employers against claims of harassment made by its employees and the defense composed of two essential elements. First is that the employer exercised reasonable care to immediately prevent and correct any sexually harassing behavior, and second, that the plaintiff employee had unreasonably failed to make any precautionary or corrective measure provided by the employer to circumvent or avoid the potential harm. In this case, Pollard failed to report the sexual harassment incidents alleged in her complaint despite the anti-sexual harassment policies implemented by the company. In fact, she failed to take advantage of the harassment report form provided by the company to avoid any possible harm. http://www.oyez.org/cases/1990-1999/1997/1997_97_282 http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/97-569.ZS.html

Q4. These are the three things I would suggest that should be given to the CEO of Teddy’s Supplies that will form part of the company’s anti-harassment policies: First is to enact an effective complaint procedure. This procedure is considered efficient when there is an appropriate response by management is taken when there is a complaint filed by one of its workers. There must be a complete investigation of the complaints and further action must be taken by management team to correct all offensive conduct in a timely manner. The employer should be able to take reasonable actions to correct and prevent the harassment in a timely manner. Second, train the employees to use reasonable care. The employee is expected to take reasonable care by making a good faith effort to avoid the harm of harassment and shall use the internal complaint procedure in a prompt and timely manner in order to address the issue right away. The failure to bring up the issue shall only be considered as reasonable if the employee believes that the complaint mechanism shall entail a risk of retaliation. Third is by conducting a training program that will raise the sexual harassment awareness inside the work place. The training shall include race and national origin discrimination to be able to establish good faith on the part of the employer to prevent all forms of harassment inside the office. Training avoidance will lead to serious financial and ethical liabilities towards to the company. Aside from the three recommendations, Teddy’s Supplies must also establish a policy informing the workers that it will be relieved from liability if the employee failed to report any incident of harassment to his or her immediate superior. In the case of Landrau Romero vs. Carribeans Restaurants, Inc., the Court dismissed the sexual-harassment claim of the employee since the employee receipt a copy of the sexual harassment form and acknowledged receipt of it. The failure of the employee to inform anyone of the alleged harassment, including the fact of failure to indicate it in the resignation letter barred him from his claim. In a similar case of Montero vs. AGCO Group, involving analogous facts, the employer avoided any liability by establishing that there is an existing anti-sexual harassment policy that is implemented by the company, but the employee unreasonably failed to make use of the policy.
Q5. In the event that a female employee is hired as the replacement of Pollard, the case will still be considered as a form of hostile work environment under Title VII. In fact disparate treatment was committed by her employer during her termination. Her damages would remain the same but the credibility of her case will depend on the new female employee’s treatment in Teddy’s Supplies and her testimony in the court of law. Under the law, any employee who believes that his or her employment rights have been violated can file a claim for sexual harassment before the EEOC. In the case of Pollard, even if her replacement was either a male or a female, it cannot be denied that harassment existed.