This weblog will focus on employment law topics. I am an employment law practitioner (management side) in Delaware at a firm called Young, Conaway, Stargatt & Taylor, LLP. My plan (once I figure out how to do it) is to publish links to employment-law-related items I find on the Web and comment on them and to discuss similar items even if they aren't on the Web. I see things in the Wall Street Journal from time to time that may be of interest to other lawyers and to human resources managers and I will point them out.
Something very interesting happened last week (see http://news.findlaw.com/ap_stories/a/w/1154/12-1-2003/20031201144502_30.html). The Supreme Court decided to hear a sexual harassment case, Pennsylvania State Police v. Nancy Drew Suders, 03-95, decided by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The Third Circuit held that when an employee quits because she was sexually harassed, the courts can treat that quit as though the employer had fired the employee - as a constructive discharge. You may say, "So what?" The big deal about the Third Circuit's decision for employers in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey is that when a court or jury decides that an employer fired an employee for not submitting to sexual harassment, that employer cannot assert any defenses - the employer is on the hook for any damages the employee can prove, plus punitive damages. Otherwise, the employer can avoid liability by proving that it had taken proper steps to prevent and correct sexual harassment and that the employee unreasonably failed to take advantage of the employer's sexual harassment prevention procedures.
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