Former employee loses claim of abusive workplace

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nba.30825
• Date: 01 August 2020
• Published date: 01 August 2020

NONPROFIT BUSINESS ADVISOR AUGUST 2020

10 © 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC • All rights reserved

DOI: 10.1002/nba

Employment Law

Here’s a look at several recent notable lawsuits involving nonprots. Nonprots should regularly review

employment laws and their compliance efforts to avert similar issues.

Title VII

Judge rules against employee

over inappropriate touching

The female plaintiff began working for the Delmar

re department in 2009.

In September 2015, a male reghter purportedly

placed his hand on the inside of the plaintiff ’s thigh

when the two of them were at lunch.

After the same reghter allegedly placed his hand

on her buttocks in July 2017, the plaintiff led a for-

mal sexual harassment complaint in August.

An investigation was conducted and a special re

department committee addressed both the plaintiff’s

harassment complaint and the investigation results in

a September meeting. The committee recommended

ring the male reghter because available surveil-

lance footage showed that he had indeed touched the

plaintiff’s buttocks in July.

When the plaintiff was removed from the payroll

in December, she led a suit that made several claims.

One was that the re department violated Title VII

by (1) creating a hostile work environment arising out

of sexual harassment and (2) ring her in retaliation

for complaining about it.

The defendant led a motion to dismiss.

The defendant rst argued that the plaintiff’s alle-

gations didn’t establish a hostile work environment.

The District Court judge ruled that the plaintiff

plausibly alleged two incidents of inappropriate

physical contact, but she said isolated incidents were

insufcient to sustain a hostile work environment

claim unless they were extremely serious. The judge

said the unwanted touching was (1) unbecoming of

any individual in modern society and (2) unaccept-

able anywhere. However, she ruled that a Title VII

violation required more evidence, and the plaintiff

hadn’t shown that the unwanted touching incidents

amounted to the requisite severe or pervasive sexual

harassment.

The defendant also argued that the plaintiff hadn’t

shown improper retaliation because the allegations

didn’t establish a connection between the August

formal complaint and her December termination.

The plaintiff responded that she had adequately

alleged a causal connection because the defendants

had engaged in a pattern of antagonism during the

months after the September meeting concerning

the internal investigation and before her December

termination.

But the judge noted that after receiving the August

harassment complaint, the defendant: (1) suspended

the accused reghter (2) opened an investigation and

(3) recommended expulsion.

The judge said those allegations didn’t permit a

reasonable inference that the defendant antagonized

the plaintiff during the time between her initial com-

plaint and her termination.

The judge acknowledged that temporal proximity

between protected activity and an adverse employ-

ment action could sometimes establish a causal link,

but only if it was “unusually suggestive.”

She also dismissed the retaliation claim, ruling the

plaintiff failed to plead any facts to suggest that the

timing was “unusually suggestive” of the requisite

causal link to support a claim of retaliation because

the allegations showed a gap of four months between

the two events.

EMPLOYER WINS ➔ Although she dismissed

both Title VII claims, the judge allowed the plaintiff

a chance to amend her pleadings.

[Molchan v. Delmar Fire Department Inc. et al.,

U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, No.

19-082, 01/19/2020].

Hostile work environment

Former employee loses claim

of abusive workplace

In 2017, the plaintiff began working as a direc-

tor at the State of Maryland Behavioral Health

Administration.

After she resigned in 2018, the plaintiff led a

suit contending that her immediate supervisor had

subjected her to a hostile work environment because

of a perception that the plaintiff had mental health

problems.

According to the plaintiff, her supervisor had once

told an administrator in 2018 that the plaintiff was bi-

polar and suffering from a split personality disorder.

The plaintiff alleged that she felt unsafe in the

workplace because her supervisor: (1) raised her

voice; (2) made “derogatory, threatening and hostile

comments” and (3) sabotaged her work performance