Demonstrated ROI
Training: Do…All That You Can Do!
May 14, 2002
Littler Mendelson
By Kevin P. O'Neill, Esq.
We continue to hear about the increasing importance of training employees and managers on organizational anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policies. The following four cases illustrate how this type of preventative training can pay off for organizations by helping to prevent legal liability, in addition to raising awareness and decreasing problem behavior. Ultimately, a serious anti-harassment message delivered through organizational training (even after a complaint is made, assuming training occurs immediately) can play a pivotal role in helping an employer avoid exposure to liability.
CASE 1
A settlement reached between Adelphia Cable Partners and the EEOC demonstrated the emerging role that training and response procedures are playing in the employment law arena. Charges of race discrimination were filed against the employer, Adelphia, after a newly hired manager subjected African American employees to racial epithets and openly displayed a hangman's noose in his office at the company's Florida facility. Despite employees' complaints to several high-level managers, the EEOC alleged that nothing was done to stop the manager's harassment.
Ultimately, the parties settled the case for just over $1 million dollars. In addition to the $1.05 million payment, the employer agreed to post and disseminate a policy statement affirming its obligation to comply with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and to train its managers and supervisors on racial harassment prevention. The agreement also requires the employer to establish a company ombudsman to receive discrimination complaints. EEOC v. Adelphia Cable Partners, L.P., d/b/a Adelphia Cable Communications, S. D. Fla., No. 01-0583-CIV-JORDAN, (consent decree filed 5/3/02).
CASE 2
In another recent case, a female African American employee alleged that she had been "barraged" by comments about her body and about African American women in general. She claimed that her employer, a trucking company, had no anti-discrimination policy, nor did it ever conduct training on preventing workplace harassment and discrimination. The employer did, however, post an EEOC poster in a dispatch trailer which the plaintiff admitted to having seen. While the district court rejected the plaintiff's claims for punitive damages based on her harassment claim, the appeals court reversed the decision because the trucking company had "never adopted any anti-discrimination policy, nor did it provide any training whatsoever." Thus, the employer may be subject to punitive damages because it did not disseminate a policy or train on that policy. Anderson v. G.D.C. Inc., 4th Cir., Nos. 01-1086, 01-1118 (March 25, 2002).
CASE 3
Contrast employer behavior above with the effective response exhibited by the employer who escaped liability in the following case. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit court took pains to offer guidance on the overall issue of the relevance of training measures undertaken after the filing of a harassment complaint: "[E]mployers should be encouraged to institute anti-harassment measures, and must be given the opportunity to present evidence of such efforts…[for example] that [they] undertook prompt and appropriate remedial measures, whether such measures occurred before or after the plaintiff happened to file his complaint."
Thus, the ruling supports the fact that timely training and educational measures which promote managerial awareness of discrimination and harassment are important elements of an employer's ability to assert the good faith defense to punitive damages. Potomac Corp. v. Swinton, 270 F.3d 794 (9th Cir. 2001); cert. denied, U.S., No. 01-1349 (4/22/02).
CASE 4
Very recently, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a ruling affirming a one million dollar punitive damages award in a racial discrimination case. In this case, the district court had excluded evidence of post-litigation training implemented by the defendant-employer. The court had excluded the evidence because the training had only been implemented seven months after the complainant quit, five months after he filed a claim alleging harassment, and two months after he filed a lawsuit.