Company: Her e-mails prove she could handle ‘harassment’
November 6, 2009 by Sam NarisiPosted in: HR Tech, In this week's e-newsletter - Tech, Latest News & Views, Sexual harrassment
Forwarding dirty jokes through work e-mail could get the company sued for harassment. But this firm is hoping inappropriate e-mails will keep it out of court.
Susan Seybert sued her employer, the International Group, Inc. (IGI), claiming her supervisor sexually harassed her and retaliated against her. Allegedly, he made sexual comments to her, stared at her inappropriately and berated her in public after she complained.
The company isn’t denying what happened — however, it is claiming that Seybert should not have been offended by the manager’s actions.
Why not? The company pointed to a dozen e-mails Seybert had sent to workers containing sexual jokes.
Seybert asked the court to prevent the e-mails from being used as evidence, claiming she needed to protect her privacy. But the court disagreed, ruling that the messages were relevant to the question of whether she was “subjectively offended” by her boss’s conduct.
Now the case is headed to trial. We’ll keep you posted.
Cite: Seybert v. The International Group, Inc.
Tags: e-mails, harassment, jokes
November 9th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
This just proves that employees will sue for any reason they can! I hope that the jury can see this and votes in the employer’s favor. Just another employee wanted to “get rich quick!”
November 10th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
The legal questons are, (1) was the supervisor’s behavior such that a “reasonable person” (or “reasonable woman”) would find it offensive or harassing? & (2) was it “unwelcome”? The alleged victim’s emails would appear relevant to the second point.
As an aside, IF (since we only have a summary label with no details to judge by) the supervisor’s behavior would meet the first criteria, the company needs to get after him (discipline or terminate) becasue — however the current case turns out — he’s a smoking fuse for other complaints. Could be he behaves similarly towards some other woman who DOESN’T send emails suggesting its not “unwelcome” — or even third parties who are imntimidated or offended by the supervisor’s behavior towards the current complainant. Sexual harassment case law (at least what I’ve seen — tho’ I’m not a lawyer) recognizes as valid a complaint by employee A that the boss’s behavior towards some other employee creates a hostiole environment for employee A, who isn’t the obvious “target.” Employee A can claim that she fears that she might also be forced to endure similar misconduct, or that accepting that sort of conduct is the way to “get ahead.”
November 10th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
There is a woman here in the office that allows an outside client to speak to her in a derogatory way. He doesn’t approach the other women in the same way because they are not receptive to his comments. He has been spoken to by our sales person, but since she encourages him, he makes those comments.
It makes me wary of ever taking any complaint from her about others based on this behavior. We have documented the encouragement she gives him to make these comments, but still, it looks so odd in an employment file.
November 10th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
The tone of the article and the comments above suggest that if a woman sends out any messages with sexual jokes, that she has given up all rights to not be sexually harassed. I would consider someone sending me a generic email to be a totally different story from someone making personal remarks to me or staring. And berating her after she complained is clearly retaliation. I’m not an uptight person, I have a good sense of humor, and there are probably some off-color jokes that would make me laugh. I don’t think that the fact that I think a dirty joke is funny means that I should be open game for someone who wants to do or say something to me personally. Also, there’s nothing in the article that says that she sent these emails to that boss that was harassing her. Sounds to me like when she sued over a situation that the company failed to handle correctly, they went on a witch hunt to see what they could use against her.
November 10th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
JCE… I agree completely. The witch hunt stands to erode here credibility. Employees know I don’t find these emails appropriate at work and avoid sending them to me. Further, I do not send any dirty emails I may receive because I need to set the example, even if the email is funny. All employees using company equipment and on company time should refrain from sending inappropriate emails.
November 10th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
I agree with JCE. The question is, did she send the inappropriate eMails to her boss (in which case I would lean more in the company’s favor) or did she only share the inappropriate jokes with colleagues that were her equals that she considered to be friends and felt comfortable with? (in which case I would lean more in the employee’s favor.)
I know that I would certainly be more willing to share some slightly off-color jokes with friends/colleagues that I would NEVER send to my boss or other people in management.
November 10th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Sending emails with off-color jokes does not make someone fair game for harassing and potentially frightening attention from a co-worker any more than watching “Desperate Housewives” means a women should expect and accept pressure to have an extra-marital affair. JCE’s comments are correct.
November 11th, 2009 at 9:30 am
The comparison is like saying a women asked to be raped because of the way she dressed. Harassment is not a joke.
November 11th, 2009 at 11:25 am
KC has hit the nail on the head. While innapropriate e-mails may be grounds for reprimand, it is most definately NOT an invitation for harassment. I personally do not share off color e-mails on company equipment, but I have a couple of coworkers I share jokes with on our private home computers through personal e-mail accounts.
The fact is, these are two completely separate issues that should be dealt with individually.
November 11th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Before I could make a comment, I would like to see exactly what the emails she allegedly sent contained. Were they flirtatious, suggestive or even inviting?
November 13th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Interesting read see link:
http://www.paed.uscourts.gov/documents/opinions/09D1266P.pdf
The boss made a vulgar comment with sexual inuendo at a company party. Her emails were par with his in vulgarity – questioning the ‘reasonable person’ standard.
Further emails reveal her overall bantering and emails negative regarding multiple supervisors, company and co workers.
Interesting case. Looks to me like she wants both ways – ok for her to parlay sexual inuendos, but when it was her boss, it was sexual harrassment. The kicker with this is technically, she IS protected! He should be held to that higher standard. And, of course, be fired -especially when you read the court case.
November 17th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
The fact that she shared sexual jokes or sent emails is irrelevant. She could have been as crass as they come. She could have had affairs with every other man in her office. Her BOSS made innuendos towards her and that alone would make me uncomfortable around my boss from that point on. We know he supposedly stared at her breasts on 2 occassions. What we don’t know is how often he made suggestive comments to her. Men, how would you feel if you had a female boss who made suggestive comments to you and was always looking at your crotch? A co-worker would be a different story because you could try to avoid them, but your boss?
November 18th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Bringing up the character of the victim is a common defense. Not saying its right or wrong, the company, which is more than just the supervisor and now has liability created by one idiot, is defending itself. Does the tactic feel underhanded? Sure, but the company (and its employees, shareholders, customers, vendors, etc.) is the one that stands to (unfairly?) lose here. It would be different if the company were fostering the environment, failing to train, or intentionally flaunting the law. Its a dirty fight on both sides, so more power to them.
The thing I’m not seeing anyone comment on is the two-wrongs-don’t-make-a-right idea. Both the “victim” and the supervisor engaged in inappropriate activity, and should have both been disciplined accordingly, and in a manner proportional to the liability they created for the company (Supervisor has a higher legal standard to maintain).
November 18th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
I’d be very curious to know if anyone complained about her emails before she filed her lawsuit.
November 18th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
I was in the audience during the trial writing a paper for school on harasssment in the workplace. I can probably answer most of your questions. The plaintiff did, in fact, send some emails of a sexual nature to employees of the company. However, those employees were all female and friends of the plaintiff. Noone has ever complained about the plaintiff’s emails. The emails were shown to the courtroom and consisted of a nude santa on his stomach with a line saying something about a Chrismas present. The other was a cartoon of someone wearing a tie that said “@#$ You” on the front of it. This particular email was sent to the plaintiff from another employee. It was not forwarded by the plaintiff. None of the email receipients included the plaintiff’s manager.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:48 am
Well, then it’s insane that those emails were allowed to entered as evidence at all. The only way they would be relevant is if she sent those emails to her superviser.
November 26th, 2009 at 9:51 am
I am truly amazed that people can make a judgment without actually knowing anything – My wife Susan Seybert never claimed to be a “prude”, nor is she. Here are a couple points to ponder wise one.
1) If you send “racy” email to friends – how does that compare to a woman being verbally abused, having her breasts stared at and having a person at a company function use a sexually explicit with not only peers, but superiors attending.
2) Why was Mr. Marchand was not part of this trial? THe judge suppressed some damaging evidence because she could not “authenticate” that Mr. Marchand was the author, but both counsels admitted it was. Nor was the CEO of the company whose deposition was read, then his son, the president of the company turned around and called his own father a bumbling old man.
3) My wife has never had a performance review below “meets expectations” so for her being incompetent is laughable – the President of the company even said her work was “fine” on the stand the review was unfair.
4) There were so many different stories by the defense no one really could prove the others story.
5) The sexual harassment complaint filed with the company, to this day, has never been investigated and findings reported.
Finally, this was not a “cash grab” or greed, it was never intended to be, sure we wanted the company, but we have settled on giving the true story of that has happened.
A few emails was never a question here – unfortunately that seemed to be the part that was stuck in the mind of the jury because it was the last thing they heard before deliberations.