atLaw
John D. Hanify
617 226-3450
Shareholder
Areas of Concentration
Business Litigation
Business Separations
Office
In today’s workplace, companies face ever-increasing pressure to take prompt remedial action when faced with employee complaints about privacy, discrimination, or sexual harassment. For example, in response to a charge of sexual harassment, management is well advised to conduct a thorough but expeditious investigation in order to preserve and create meaningful affirmative defenses to a claim.
Modern technology complicates the investigative process. An employer’s improper monitoring or interception of email messages may violate privacy or wiretap laws, and may compromise discovery efforts in the event of subsequent litigation.
Well-intentioned remedial statutes can also create traps in a corporate investigation. Grieving employees have enhanced their discrimination claims by also asserting retaliation claims or attempting to qualify as “whistleblowers.” Under the recently signed Sarbanes-Oxley Act, employers now face the prospect of criminal sanctions for retaliating against such “whistleblowers.” Creative lawyering and unhappy employees offer the ingredients for the exploitation of statutory remedies in new and troubling ways.
A great deal of what labor and employment lawyers do is attempt to solve workplace claims after they have been brought. That aspect of lawyering is unquestionably more expensive and disruptive for business than the modest effort, reflection and planning that can take place prophylactically to avoid such difficulties.
On the morning of November 21, 2002, our Labor and Employment Group is presenting a breakfast seminar entitled “The New Balancing Act in the Workplace.” The seminar will cover a range of useful, practical and preventive measures for employers and managers. It is free. Although we are always pleased to see you, better we see you before a claim is brought than afterwards.
