Judge rules against employee over inappropriate touching
DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/nba.30824 |
Published date | 01 August 2020 |
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 nonprots. Nonprots 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 reghter purportedly
placed his hand on the inside of the plaintiff ’s thigh
when the two of them were at lunch.
After the same reghter 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 reghter 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
insufcient 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 reghter (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
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