Sexual Harassment

HRAdvice

If an past Employee complains of sexual harassment 12 months after it occurred, and neither Employee works for our organization, what is our organization's liability? :-S

Down_the_Middle

While I applaud your concise question , it would be important to know a little more info. Did the former employee ever allege harassment while working for your organization or wait a full 12 months b/4 raising the complaint? Was the alleged harasser your employee at the time of the harassment, or a vendor, customer, etc......? Are there any current "rumblings" among the workforce about harassment??

HRAdvice

The former Employee never complained prior to now. They were terminated in November of last year for misconduct. The former Employee contact our organization in May 2002 to see if they could get their job back. No positions were available at this time and nothing was mentioned about the harassment. The alleged harasser was the Employee's supervisor who left their position in February 2002. No other Employee's have ever mentioned any harassment.

Theresa Gegen TX

This is hard to answer because the facts are so generic.

Generally, under Title VII an employee has 300 days to bring a complaint. Your state law may give more time or avenues to complain.

There is an affirmative defense that the employer can raise to any claim: basically that the employee failed to take advantage of any complaint procedure that was available.

As far as what you can do right now, since the person who was the accused harasser no longer works for your company, there is really nothing to investigate. I don't think your liability will great, but if the employee brings a timely claim under your state law, and can prove that she was fired because of the harassment, the employer can be liable, even if the alleged harasser no longer works at the company.

Good Luck!

Down_the_Middle

I would personally move on to other things that add more value to the organization and not devote any time to this. Your state law addresses the time limits for when a S-H can be timely filed and I'll bet the time has expired. I just can't get too excited over the allegation at this point!