Accountability is not something that happens often these days. When something bad happens, often everybody tries to pass the blame around which causes things like lawsuits to get hung up in court or left unresolved.
An example would be a sexual harassment case that you report. At a certain point, it would seem that even the employer bears some responsibility. Of course, the blame mainly goes onto the shoulders of the person who was doing the harassment. Yet, employers are supposed to know what goes on in their daily operations.
In this article, I will go over what some of the possibilities are when it comes to suing an employer for something an employee did.
Sexual harassment or assault
Every workplace is supposed to take sexual harassment or sexual assault extremely seriously. In fact, they often have a very detailed protocol in place for reporting incidents. It’s in their interest because they do indeed want to avoid being sued so they cover their legal bases with a thorough system.
When you follow all of those protocols that they lay out then you should have a case. For instance, if you did your part by reporting in the manner that they have asked and the harassment or assault continues, then it shows that the employer didn’t take the proper steps to ensure a safe workplace for you and your coworkers. This is an almost sure thing for a sexual assault lawsuit.
A lawyer will tell you to also keep detailed records of the harassment or assault itself but also the reporting. Every phone call, SMS or email should be recorded with a date, time and who you spoke to. This holds true for reporting to your HR department as well as if you needed to contact the police to file an assault report. If you saw a doctor or healthcare professional because of an injury, then you will need to have this documented as well.
Job related accident
This is a bit of a tricky situation that has a lot of loopholes and is not nearly as cut and dry as harassment. For instance, if an employee is doing something that is part of their job and it causes harm to you, then you have a lawsuit against the company. Even if they are acting negligently. An example of this would be if a driver was doing work business and hit a pedestrian while en route to a service call or delivery.
Where they may not be liable is if an employee did something on their own time and not at work or doing any work for the company and caused an accident. This would not be the responsibility of the owner of the company.
Negligent hiring
You could have a lawsuit if an injury occurred through the incompetence of an employee if they were hired knowing that they were not properly trained to do the job. An example would be somebody hired to use heavy machinery that causes an accident if it is found out that they had been hired with no previous experience and didn’t know how to safely operate the machine.
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
This Contributed post has been written by a third party.
