Does your company's harassment policy meet each of the three C's?

• Author: SHEA, ROBIN E.
• Position: Brief Article

Your company is named in a harassment lawsuit. You have a no-harassment policy, and the plaintiff failed to promptly bring the harassing behavior to your attention. You can relax, true or false?

Here's a clue: Last year, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, which handles appeals from federal courts in North Carolina and other states, held that the no-harassment policy of a major bank did not shield the bank from harassment liability.

The 4th Circuit found that the bank's policy did not clearly cover the type of harassing behavior alleged in the lawsuit. The bank had to face a jury trial on the plaintiff's harassment claim despite the fact that the plaintiff waited approximately two years before informing the bank about the harassment.

Where did the bank go wrong, and how can you prevent the same result at your company?

Protecting your company

It is a defense to a so-called "hostile work environment" harassment claim if the employer can show that it had taken remedial measures that could be expected to prevent or stop unlawful harassment and that the plaintiff unreasonably failed to avail himself or herself of such remedial measures. The courts have generally found that, where an employer has a solid no-harassment policy and the plaintiff fails to promptly report the harassment, the employer wins. To be able to take advantage of this defense, employers should ensure that their harassment policies meet the three C's: coverage, communication and comprehension.

See whether your company's policy holds up or folds under questioning.

Coverage: Broad policies are best

* Does your policy address all forms of barassment? Many companies still have only a sexual-harassment policy. If your company is in this group, you should revamp your sexual harassment policy into a more comprehensive no-harassment policy that covers, in addition to sex, harassment based on race, national origin, religion, age, disability or any other legally protected characteristic. If your policy gives examples of the types of behavior that can be considered harassing or inappropriate (an excellent idea), the examples should not be limited to sex.

* Does it clearly cover "nondirty" forms of sexual harassment? We often think that sexual harassment consists of what the courts like to call prurient but the rest of us call "dirty" behavior: sexual advances, off-color humor, dog-eared copies of Playgirl in the desk drawers and the like. However, sexual harassment...