Who won this case? Employees banned from dating
May 23, 2008 by Jim GiulianoPosted in: Behavior, Discipline, Employment law, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Managers, Who won?, policies
In this real-life case, a supervisor got fired for violating the company policy on dating subordinates. He sued the company, claiming invasion of privacy. Who won?
The facts:
The upper-level manager of a male supervisor got complaints that the supervisor was showing favoritism toward a subordinate he was dating. At the time, the company had a policy banning relationships between supervisors and subordinates. The upper-level manager ordered the supervisor to stop dating the employee or be fired, using company policy and the complaints as the reason for the order. The supervisor refused the order and was fired. He sued, saying the company was violating his right to privacy by trying to monitor his relationships.
The employer said:
The company noted that it had a policy against such dating for the very same reason that caused problems in this instance: friction among other employees who perceived that the relationship resulted in favoritism for the subordinate.
Who won the case?
Answer: The company.
Why: While recognizing the employee’s right to privacy, especially outside the workplace, the court noted the company had a right to set policies and regulate behavior that might affect the efficient operation of business.
Terminating an employee for violating such policies - especially after warnings about the behavior - was a valid action by the company.
The court agreed with the company that supervisors have a special responsibility to maintain the appearance of fairness. Subordinates have to have trust that no employee has a special “in” with the boss.
Cite: Barbee v. Household Automotive Finance.
Tags: court, dating, privacy, Supervisors
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October 27th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
I am an HR Manager in the hospitality field. Our policy is that it is unprofessional for the staff to “pick-up” on the guests while they are staying in the hotel. My question is, can a supervisor prohibit an associate from seeing someone once the guest checks out of the hotel? In my professional opinion, the supervisor cannot; however, one of my supervisors arguments are if the associate dates the guest and things don’t go well, we could lose future business.
I would love your advice on this subject.
Thank you so much for your time!
November 10th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
To me, the greatest cause for concern is that this relationship is supervisor & subordinate which could open the door to sexual harassment should the relationship break up. Peer-on-peer relationships may be cause for concern because of job performance issues, but that can be dealt with under a different venue.