company e-mails

MAF

Employee filed grievances for termination. Discovery was part of process. In file were e-mails between officers of company in which they made fun of employee. Employee was claiming a disability and asking for accommodations. E-mails also showed a plot to document and terminate employee. Can employee claim hostile work environment even though the comments were never made to them?

Gillian

these are called "smoking guns". I don't know about a hostile working environment (in the legal sense) but there may be ADA and retaliation issues. You have a plaintiff's attorneys dream.

franfields

I agree with Gillian. My only comment about the officers is "What were they thinking?" 8-|

Don D

My prayers are with you. My question is more basic. How did the emails of officers of the company happen to 'get discovered'?

MAF

E-mails were copied at job location along with personnel file, sent to attorney's office, numbered and then sent to ee's attorney as part of discovery. Those that had cc to attorney were removed. Everything else was sent including the ones were they made fun of employee's condition. Adminstrator at job site took it upon himself to put everything in writing to "document" ee. That included the e-mails and also conversation were ee told employer that sewer gas was bad for health according to local fire department. Every e-mail were ee had sent about odors/gas smell were also included. This provided ee with documentation of ongoing problem in building.

Don D

Boy, this is a textbook wakeup call for anybody putting copies of emails in personnel files. If those emails passed through the actual hands of HR people, I think they should have been culled and never gotten to the file. Even executives need sometimes to be admonished to clean up their acts.