Last week, various Connecticut newspapers reported on a judicial marshal who allegedly sexually harassed four women, including a DCF worker.
Whether the charges have merit or not is a something we’ll have to leave to the judicial system itself, but it raises a point that I haven’t seen often raised.
An employer’s duty to stop
Reading the Second Circuit’s decision in Duch v. Jakubek (decided on Friday, December 4th), a distinct image came to mind: The ostrich who sticks its head in the sand.
Why the ostrich? Because, the Duch case discusses what to do with a supervisor who purposely ignores evidence of sexual harassment. And the court concludes that
With complaints of sexual harassment, there is a tendency of some employers to overreact. The employer may decide to terminate an otherwise successful employee on the basis of one incident — no matter the context. Some employers, of course, might simply ignore the problem altogether.
But another group of employers us
es a "Goldilocks" approach to
Summary Orders (in other words, decisions with no precedential value) by the Second Circuit typically are not worth noting. However, a decision released today is telling for the court’s view of race and gender discrimination cases and it can be cited by parties under certain limitations.