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Bad news for me: Court rules employees can be fired for being irresistible

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by MisterCreosote, Dec 23, 2012.

  1. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    It's funny how you want to sound enlightened yet still back him for doing the right thing -- because as you stated, these cases usually boil down to a manipulative woman gaming the system. Your opinion is noted. Passive-aggressiveness in the extreme for you.

    Couldn't have been that she just wanted to keep her job. Since she didn't haul him into court, it's her fault.
     
  2. exmediahack

    exmediahack Well-Known Member

    I never said 'usually'. I have said that I have seen it happen. I've seen it happen more than once but certainly not the majority.

    If you want to make a claim about sexual harassment and gender discrimination, you document it. You also have to tell your supervisor when something that he says is not acceptable WHEN it happens or very soon after. Then you document that you told him this.

    That is your "paper trail" in case you want to circle back to it later on for legal action.

    If she tells the dentist "I would appreciate it if you didn't ask me about this" or "please do not talk to me like this" (or something similar) and he does it again, then she has a much stronger case.

    I ask this with no sarcasm as I would never call you an "f*ing idiot": What do you think is a proper resolution to this case?
     
  3. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    A year's salary.
     
  4. exmediahack

    exmediahack Well-Known Member

    I don't think that's unreasonable. If she made 30k, that's probably what a few months of child support and alimony would have run the dentist otherwise.

    In an unrelated story, the price of cleanings in this town will go up $40.
     
  5. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    You also have a curious definition of what sexual harassment is, that it only counts if she is building a paper trail. As the statements and messages are not in dispute, it is textbook sexual harassment.

    Blaming the victim here is really quite low-class. But she was probably out to get him. It happens a lot as you know.
     
  6. exmediahack

    exmediahack Well-Known Member

    Every place I have worked at the last 20 years has had a fairly detailed policy on sexual harassment and gender discrimination issues. Each and every time, the materials have said - in some fashion - to document the offending behavior and ask the offending person to stop. If the behavior doesn't stop after an initial warning, then go to HR.
     
  7. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    And what do you think "HR" consists of in a small-town dentist's office where the dentist's wife is also an employee?
     
  8. exmediahack

    exmediahack Well-Known Member

    I don't disagree. It's certainly not a normal "corporation".

    Yet I wonder if she contacted any gender discrim/civil rights legal counsel, even for a consultation, before her termination if she was offended. I think, if she would have done that before she was fired, her case would have more legal standing.
     
  9. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    And he would have found a reason to get rid of her before it ever came to that, and he would have ruined her rep in the industry so she couldn't get another job. There were a million reasons for her to just ignore it as best she could, and she did that, and then the immoral prick and his vindictive wife took their problems out on her anyway.

    These are not the kind of people you want to be arguing for.
     
  10. Amy

    Amy Well-Known Member

    There was no behavior she had to protest or say no to or consult counsel about under the theory of this case. She did not allege that she was sexually harassed. Her case had nothing to do with the dentist's comments to her during her employment. Her argument was that her firing was discrimination because of gender, in violation of state law. The basic argument was that but for her gender she would not have been find because the dentist would not have been concerned about his attraction had she not been female. The only act she was protesting was the firing itself.

    While this may not have been found to violate state law I am almost speechless that there are people on this board (and the dentist's religious advisors) who believe that it is appropriate to punish a woman because a man is a pig.

    Oh, Mark, you made the comment that "she can find another job." If you read the article that was linked by britwrit you will see she did - as a waitress.
     
  11. doctorquant

    doctorquant Well-Known Member

    I don't think she should be punished because her boss is a pig. But if you take away the comments/texting (and I know that's a bit like saying "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln ..."), I get to a very troublesome place. What if we don't have a boss who is a pig (or who acts like one), but we do have a boss who has a seriously jealous wife? How do you work through that?
     
  12. printit

    printit Member

    1. The dentist is well within his legal rights. As someone posted on page 1, "hotness" is not a protected class. (which, as with most labor laws, actually works to the benefit of the people without said protection, since in a world where "hotness" is a protected class, women like the dentist's wife in this story would simply keep the dentist's of the world from ever hiring hot women to begin with).
    2. The best advise on sexual temptation is to remove oneself from it. This is not always possible. Most affairs do not just happen, regardless of what people having the affair want to think. There are steps that often should be taken well before the affair.
    HOWEVER....
    3. The story I read said that the dentist's wife worked at the practice. This, to me, is where I just don't see where the dentist is coming from. I would understand, "Look, this job calls for a lot of travel and it's just the two of us, my wife is uncomfortable...." but come on, if she's in the building the whole day, what realistically is going to happen? Given the virtual impossibility that anything untoward was going to happen, the guy comes off like a real d-bag here for firing her. And, if you have to pull a move like this, you need to do a year's salary. Or find her another job.
     
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