Personal Injury Lawyer Blog
(Please note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this workplace harassment/sex discrimination case and its proceedings.)
THE REASONS FOR HER TERMINATION ARE TOTALLY FABRICATED
Defendant’s reasons for termination are totally fabricated. Plaintiff never yelled at Mr. Chan in the meeting or at any other time. To the contrary, Plaintiff spoke in a normal voice and was not aggressive at all. It was Mr. Chan that was yelling. Also, Plaintiff never refused to change and never refused to do what Mr. Chan said. She always followed his directions. Plaintiff was not insubordination and she was not rude, or harassing, or discourteous with a customer on June 21, 2006 or at any other time to management, any customer or any employee. To the contrary, she always acted professionally towards management, employees and the customers and never violated and polices.
IN VIOALTION OF DEFENDANT”S OWN POLICIES, PLAINTIFF’S COMPLAINTS OF HARASSMENT WERE NEVER INVESTIGATED
Defendant has specific policies that require an impartial and full investigation of an employee’s complaints of harassment. Under Healthmart Foods policies, if a Store Leader gets a complaint where there is even an indication of unlawful harassment, it is mandatory that complaint be investigated and the investigation be documented. The specific investigation steps wuld be to: 1) speak with the person claiming harassment, 2) obtain written statements from the employee, 3) talk with the other parties involved and obtain written statements, 4) inform the employee of the results of the investigation and 5) review the results of the investigation with Team Member Services. Plaintiff made multiple complaints of pregnancy and accommodation harassment to Mr. Davis directly and to Mr. Chan.
Mr. Davis admits that Plaintiff complained about harassment. Mr. Davis admits that Plaintiff was complaining that the counseling she got was harassment. He even put in an email that she was complaining of harassment.
There was never any investigation into Plaintiff’s claims of harassment. Mr. Davis never did anything to investigate Plaintiff’s claims of harassment after she claimed she was harassed. He never informed Team Member Services that Ms. Smith was claiming she was being harassed. He never obtained any written statements from Ms. Smith about the harassment. He never reported any results of any harassment investigation to Ms. Smith. No one from Defendant ever talked to Plaintiff about her complaints of harassment, got a written statement or told her of the results of any investigation into her complaints.
The reason why her complaints were not investigated was because Mr. Davis just viewed her complaints as being an excuse she was using because she was pregnant. Mr. Davis admitted that Plaintiff was complaining that the counseling was harassment. He testified that thought that the reason that Plaintiff was disputed the counseling is because she was pregnant and she did not have to worry about anything.
DEFENDANT HAS OFFERED FURTHER FALSE REASONS
Plaintiff did provide all the necessary paperwork to Defendant about her leave. She provided each note to Defendant, including the note after November of 2006. Each note contained the fact that Plaintiff was out because of her pregnancy. Further, Plaintiff called and followed up with Mr. Davis about when she could come back to work. She informed him she was able to come back to work and never said she would quit. Nonetheless, she was still fired. (See Part 9 of 19.)
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.