When the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently sued a company for harassment, the case came to a strange and extraordinary ending.

The case involved an Iowa-based trucking company, CRST Van Expedited, Inc. A female driver with the company filed a complaint about the company’s permitting of sexual harassment by male drivers. The EEOC picked up the complaint and filed a suit against CRST in federal district court.

This time, the EEOC picked the wrong judge.

U.S. District Judge Linda Reade rejected the EEOC’s claims, threw out the charges and accused the EEOC lawyers of taking a “sue first, ask questions later” approach.

Further, the judge decided, the EEOC must pay the employer $4.5 million to cover legal fees and other costs associated with the case because the agency “acted unreasonably” and failed to conduct a “proper investigation.”

Cite: EEOC v. CRST Van Expedited, Inc.

When fighting bias claims, nothing can doom a company quite like the employee showing the judge a discriminatory e-mail or text message from a supervisor. But as this recent case shows, there are still steps employers can take to protect themselves from those claims.

An African-American security guard sued his employer for discrimination. His reason: racially charged jokes send to him by his supervisor via text messages.

One of the messages, which was sent to several employees, contained a serious racial slur. On top of that, the employee also claimed white employees got more favorable work assignments than minorities.

Employees who have permanent written evidence of harassment or bias (like a defamatory e-mail or text message) usually do well in court.

But not this time. Here’s why:

After getting the messages, the employee complained to HR. After getting the complaint, the company:

1. gave the supervisor a “final warning”
2. transferred the employee to a location with a different supervisor (which the employee had requested), and
3. looked into his claims about work assignments, but found no evidence he was right.

After that, the employee sued anyway, claiming the company didn’t do enough. But the court disagreed.

Prompt investigation and appropriate discipline can protect companies from managers’ bias and stupid misuse of technology.

Cite: Griffin vs. Harrisburg Property Services, Inc.

The Wichita Falls (TX) Times Record News reports that a local company, Crowell Contract and Design, Inc., came to an out-of-court agreement with the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission after the agency filed a complaint against company president Timmy Christopher for pulling down the pants of a female worker while other workers looked on.

The employer agreed to pay the employee $21,000 and take “corrective action” to ensure there are no repeat incidents — which sounds as if it wouldn’t be all that complicated, since all it requires is that the president refrain from pulling down employees’ pants.

Among the allegations filed in EEOC documents: President Christopher occasionally would stroll behind worker Deanna Collins and tug at her pants, until one day when he finally decided to pull them down. Collins resigned and filed a complaint with the EEOC.

All together now: What was he thinking?

For starters, the median award for all employment-related claims in 2009 skyrocketed by 60% over 2008.The median amount last year was $326,640.

That scary stat comes from the latest survey by Jury Verdict Research. Here’s more from the survey:

• The claim where your company will most likely pay the most: retaliation. Judges and juries are especially tough when they perceive than a supervisor got tough with an employee who filed a complaint about discrimination or other unfair treatment.
• The claim your business will pay the most for if it goes to a jury: age or disability discrimination.
• The claim your company is most likely to get hit with: sex or race discrimination. They remain the most common.

The new year is a great time to review your policies with all supervisors to ensure everyone understands what’s OK and what’s not in terms of managing people.

Question:
We learned through a local newspaper that one of our employees was arrested recently for DUI and drug possession. We’re concerned about workplace safety and other issues — his manager said there were suspicions that the employee had used drugs on the job.

What do we do now?

Answer:
Conduct an independent investigation, recommends employment-law attorney Roy Ginsburg.

First, talk to the employee about what happened. If you want to verify his version of the events, you could also get a copy of the police report.

Once you have the facts straight, speak with the employee and let him know you think he has a problem and that you want to help.

If he’s defensive, noncommittal or defiant, those are red flags. You might want to go to the next step, such as requiring that he take a drug test.

Coming across a public confession on the Internet.

Several companies have recently used info found on sites like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn to fight fraudulent workers’ compensation claims.

Sometimes, employees will blatantly brag about fooling companies. More often, though, they’ll describe strenuous activities they’ve recently participated in (playing sports, for example) while they’re supposedly too injured to work. For example:

• A Los Angeles-area warehouse worker filed a work-related back injury claim — but then posted on Facebook about bowling tournaments he’d competed in, after the injury.
• Dollar Tree had paid out over $100,000 over a year and a half to an employee with back problems. Her MySpace page listed a side job as a wedding photographer. Suspicious, the company sent representatives to conduct surveillance, and the employee was spotted lugging heavy camera equipment with no signs of back pain.
• Claims investigation service GlobalOptions Group even reports finding an employee who posted videos of himself competing in a rodeo while he was supposedly too injured to get out of bed.

To start at the beginning, Tony Jackson is a firearms instructor and self-proclaimed advocate of Second Amendment rights. That’s what he is. An employee of Planco, a Pennsylvania subsidiary of the The Hartford insurance group, is what he used to be.

Jackson got canned by Planco for at-work browsing of Web sites that sell firearms and parts for firearms, in preparation for a skeet-shooting outing he planned with his wife.

Here’s where it gets complicated.

While Jackson was employed with Planco, he and  supervisor Christie Vasquez argued often about politics and gun-ownership rights. And it was Vasquez who spotted Jackson surfing the gun Web sites. She reported Jackson to the company’s HR manager, who instructed the IT department to run a check on Jackson’s Internet activity. When several firearms Web sites showed up in the activity check, the company placed Jackson on leave, denying him access to the building and requesting undercover police to be present at the workplace.

More complications: Some time prior to the Web incident, Jackson had suffered a heart attack and was placed on three months’ medical leave. After his return, he received a poor performance review from Vasquez, who said the employee didn’t meet expectations. Jackson says it was because he took medical leave.

Anyway, let’s return to the gun issue:  Backed by a letter from supervisor Vasquez saying she feared for her safety, the company then fired Jackson, even though there was no evidence he was ever violent or that the Web sites were anything but legitimate shopping sites for gun owners. Jackson says the gun issue is just a smoke screen for illegally firing someone with medical problems.

As you’ve probably figured out, the whole thing ended up in court. The company argued it had a policy against browsing “inappropriate” Web sites. Jackson countered that there was nothing inappropriate about the sites, and that the company has overlooked other employee incidences of browsing nonwork-related Web sites.

The verdict: The company wins. A U.S. District Court judge said Jackson hadn’t shown enough evidence of discrimination and that Planco legally exercised its employer rights by firing Jackson. (Note: Pennsylvania is an at-will state.)

That’s what the courts are attempting to determine in a case involving three execs of the now-defunct Castaways Hotel, Casino and Bowling Center.

Here’s what happened:

After Castaways Hotel, Casino and Bowling Center filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, three former workers personally sued three Castaways managers (the chairman and CEO, the CFO and a third manager) for unpaid wages.

The three former employees filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of all Castaways’ employees who weren’t paid due wages under state and federal law.

A Federal Court of Appeals ruled that the managers did fit the FLSA definition of “employer” and, under that definition, they are required to pay the employees  their due wages.

The case has been remanded to a trial court for further proceedings. We’ll keep you posted on the outcome.

The scene:

The complaint HR manager Jean Ferdinand heard wasn’t a new one. Three times this week she’d heard the same thing from other supervisors in the company.

“How am I supposed to run my department when Tom keeps interfering?” accounting manager Carol Hardy fumed.

VP Tom Harper was known to have an open-door policy, and he was always encouraging employees to come in anytime.

Sometimes he encouraged them a little too much.

“Whenever someone has a problem with me, they think they can run in to Tom and complain,” Carol continued. “And they know he’s going to take their side. It undermines my authority.”

Jean didn’t mention the other supervisors’ complaints about Tom. “They’ve probably already talked among themselves about it,” he thought silently.

More than a suggestion
“You know how Tom is,” Jean responded. “He wants everyone to be happy here, and he just wants to help out.”

“Help out?” Carol gasped. “He’s driving us crazy. We know almost every time we get tough on an employee, Tom’s going to step in and tell us to let up.”

“He really orders you to do that?” Jean asked.

“Look, he’s the vice-president,” Carol noted. “When he says, ‘How ‘bout taking it easy on so-and-so?’ it’s more than just a suggestion.”

“Understood,” Jean said. “Let me think about how to handle this.”

If you were Jean, what would you do to deal with the problem?

Bobbi Strother, HR manager, Haymarket, VA
What Bobbi would do: With something like this, I think you have to go straight to the VP, explain the problem and ask him to stop. I’d suggest that he advise people to go back to their managers and work out the problem at that level. The only exception might be regarding sensitive personal issues that might make people uncomfortable when discussing with a supervisor.

Reason: It seems that everyone but the VP knows about the problem, so he should be made aware of it and why he has to change.

Tracy Philips, HR director, Shreveport, LA
What Tracy would do: I’d probably speak to the VP to explain the problem. I’d also make sure employees understand that the first priority is to work things out with the individual managers and not to run to a higher-up whenever a problem pops up. They need to be clear on how we conduct employee-boss relations.

Reason: Yes, the VP is causing a problem that you have to deal with, but you need to deal with the employees, too. If you can get them to understand how to settle disputes in a mature, businesslike way, they won’t bother going to the VP.

Tom Petersen, program manager, Eagle River, AK
What Tom would do: One thing you might want to look at is whether the managers are in fact doing all they can to bring about fair resolutions to disputes. I’m not saying you go into it thinking the managers are wrong, but you should take an objective look to see if there’s an underlying reason people keep going to the VP.

Reason: Sometimes you might find that in fact a manager didn’t properly address a problem. If so, you could address that with training and counseling, and possibly cut down on perceived need for the VP’s help.

The agency has proposed $1.7 billion for what it calls “worker protection” programs. That’s a 10% increase over the dollars designated for those programs in FY 2009, and the highest it’s been since FY 2001.

A big chunk of the money is earmarked for unemployment benefits and workers comp, but here’s where a lot of the rest is going:

• The Wage and Hour Division will receive $228 million, an increase of $35 million from the prior year, including funding to hire 200 new investigators. That signals greater focus on compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act — meaning more investigations to ensure employees are properly classified as exempt and nonexempt for overtime purposes. Division investigators will also be looking at compliance with minimum-wage laws.
• $564 million will go to the department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. That’s $51 million more than  in FY 2009. Some of the money will go to hire 160 new OSHA enforcement staff, many of whom will be bilingual to communicate with immigrant workers when investigations are held.