Supreme Court Decision Expands Potential Employer Liabilities
In a March 1, 2011 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court made life much riskier for employers. Here's what you need to know to minimize these risks.
Decision-makers typically have to depend on input from others, such as supervisors, managers and co-workers, when they make decisions that are adverse to employees - for example, termination, discipline and failure to promote decisions. In response to such a decision, an employee will sometimes complain that those who provided the input harbored an unlawful bias against the employee, such as a race, religion, or disability bias.
Here's the issue: once an employment decision is made, does a decision-maker have to respond to these kinds of "they were biased against me" sour grapes and revisit the decision? Or can the decision-maker rely on what seems like reliable information, and move on?
Short answer: if you ignore this kind of employee complaint, you do so at your extreme peril.
The Supreme Court's ruling effectively says that employers must take a post-decision complaint of this type very seriously, and in response they must initiate and complete a detailed investigation of the complaint that meets certain legal criteria, which is not an easy or routine task, before they can safely implement their decision. Otherwise, if the employee later sues and produces evidence that, as charged, the employee's accusers were unlawfully biased, the employer will be liable to the employee ... even though the employer's decision-maker had no bias against the employee, no knowledge that anyone else was biased against the employee, and made the decision in total good faith.
Here are the take-aways from the Supreme Court's decision:
- It is crucial that employers understand how and when they can be liable for the actions of non-decision-makers;
- Employers must investigate every employee complaint that alleges unlawful conduct - including complaints that pertain to a decision previously made;
- The investigation must conform with certain legal requirements, and employers must take appropriate action based on what the investigation reveals;
- Executives, managers and supervisors must be trained so that they understand how to recognize and deal with these and similar situations, before it's too late.
Let us know if we can be of any help.
