Employment Law Newsletter

Periodically, we remind employers that they cannot effectively defend sexual harassment claims if they fail to implement and enforce a sexual harassment program that includes well-publicized policies prohibiting unlawful harassment, periodic training of supervisory personnel in the sexual harassment policy, and clear monitoring and investigative procedures reasonably designed to identify and remediate sexual harassment in the workplace. A New Jersey Appellate Court recently hit that message home when it reinstated a claim against an employer who could not establish the aforementioned elements of an effective anti-harassment program.

In , plaintiffs appealed the trial court’s dismissal of their hostile work environment claim under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination arising from alleged acts by a fellow employee. The trial court concluded that despite the evidence showing that the plaintiffs were exposed to sexual harassment in the workplace, the County could not be vicariously liable because the offender was not a supervisor, the County had a sexual harassment policy in place providing for a complaint procedure, the plaintiff’s invoked the complaint procedure, and the ensuing investigation resulted in a finding that the allegations could not be sustained.

Employment Law Newsletter

By now most employers know that the wage payment mandates of the FLSA may require an employer to compensate employees for unauthorized work time when the employer “suffers or permits” the employee to work and receives the benefit of the employee’s services. However, a federal appeals court recently issued a decision that may give employers some ammunition in defending claims for unauthorized work.

In , the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the plaintiff manager’s attempt to secure compensation for regularly reporting to duty 15 to 45 minutes before the start of her shift to engage in activities such as reviewing employee schedules, distributing materials to subordinates’ workstations, cleaning work areas and preparing prototypes for production.