A federal court in Virginia recently dismissed a contentious sex discrimination lawsuit brought against a Wessels Sherman client. In this case, a former employee alleged sexual discrimination when her employer fired her. Further, she claimed that the employer discriminated against her when she was denied a promotion. Responding on behalf of the employer, Wessels Sherman Attorneys Jim Sherman and Kevin Mosher from the firm's Minneapolis office, argued that the employee's claims were baseless and the case should be dismissed as a matter of law before proceeding with a costly and time-consuming trial. To the relief of our client, a federal judge agreed with Wessels Sherman' arguments and dismissed the case.
The case presented several challenging legal and factual issues to be overcome. First, as with most sex discrimination in promotion claims, the female plaintiff here was passed over for a promotion that was awarded to her male counterpart. Sherman and Mosher, however, presented significant evidence that the successful male candidate was substantially more qualified to perform the necessary job duties. For clients that might find themselves in a similar situation, Sherman offers the advice that, "As long as the employee who receives the open job or promotion is the better qualified person for the job and the company can articulate that the job requirements are legitimate and make sense given the type of job, companies have great arguments that the decision to promote or hire Employee A over Employee B has nothing to do with one or the other's gender."
The other difficulty with this case was the reasoning that prompted the employer to fire the employee. For her part, the employee argued that the employer incorrectly concluded that she had fraudulently changed her time records, a conclusion which became the basis for the employer's termination of her employment. Wessels Sherman argued, however, that many, if not most federal courts recognize that employers can make decisions that are right or wrong when disciplining employees, as long as the decision is not made because of the employee's protected class (e.g., gender, race, religion, etc.). As Mosher explains, "We argued to the court that it didn't matter whether the plaintiff's manager was correct or not when he decided to terminate her employment after he concluded that she had altered her time records. Instead, we provided the court with evidence showing that based on investigation, it was reasonable to conclude that the employee had altered her time records and the manager's conclusion had nothing to do with her gender. The federal judge agreed with our view that whether or not she actually changed her time records was a moot point."
"All employers can learn a valuable lesson from this case," noted Sherman. "First, make certain that you have detailed, accurate and up-to-date job descriptions. It's very difficult to argue to the court that something is an essential requirement for the job when it's not listed on the job description. Second, make certain that thorough and well-documented investigations are made into disciplinary matters and policy violations. Too often employers will make hasty decisions to discipline employees without conducting a sufficient investigation to determine whether a policy violation has legitimately occurred. And third, be consistent with your disciplinary practices and tell the employee beforehand how his or her performance is insufficient. Employees who sue are often surprised when they are disciplined because they did not foresee the adverse action coming. Tell employees how they are performing poorly, what the consequences are, and what they need to do to improve. Make certain to document the conversation(s). If employers follow this process in ongoing performance problem situations, an employee shouldn't be surprised when he or she is disciplined (including termination) after making the same mistake(s) again."
Questions? For more information on the federal court in Virginia's decision dismissing the former employee's case, feel free to contact either Jim Sherman or Kevin Mosher in our Minneapolis office at (952) 746-1700.
