Jottings By An Employer's Lawyer |
Friday, October 07, 2011
Giving Aid to the Enemy: The Healthy Workplace Act Explained
I know that the HWB attempts to put in procedural protections to ensure that a suit can't be based on "just a bad day at the office," but as someone who is in the trenches where those battles are fought, I know it will not work. (Let me rephrase that, it could work, but at a tremendously prohibitive cost in both judicial and employer resouces. Lawyers, however, would benefit tremendously.) Relying on trial courts to be effective gatekeepers on this issue is simply a flawed strategy. First, it ignores the basic principle that when an employer is sued they have lost. See my earlier post, Bullying As a Cause of Action: One Large Step Closer. Given the HWB to work with, any lawyer who could not craft a viable complaint on what he or she is told by any employee who is unhappy with their workplace, should turn in their bar card. Remember the standard for chucking it out at that stage, which would still cost the employer the cost of retaining counsel and making an initial pleading, generally requires the court to accept as true anything that is alleged in the complaint. Secondly, it has not worked even when there was a much higher bar. In Texas, the Supreme Court has repeatedly lamented the failure of lower courts to serve in the gatekeeper function in cases of intentional infliction of emotional distress, where the standard is: only where the conduct has been so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, so as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community. Restatement (Second) of Torts, Section 46 cmt. d (1965).If the trial courts can't screen out cases where the test is "outrageous conduct" we can't possibly expect them to do so where they are being asked to make subtle distinctions involving the kinds of conduct listed above. In fact, it would require what courts from the Supreme Court on down have frequently insisted they are not interested (or capable) of being, "super personnel departments" as the 1st Circuit described it. The key to regulating inappropriate conduct lies in employer action. And in the presentation, there is a section on how such conduct is harmful to business. That is the case that needs to be made. Let's just make it in the C-Suite, not the courthouse. Labels: bullying
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