Discrimiation - Emploment Laws

The plaintiff, Ingrid Reeves, worked at a sales company, C.H. Robinson. Reeves alleged that she was subjected to hearing her male coworkers call other women names such as" b***h," "wh**e" and "c**t" on a daily basis. She also claimed that there were repeated vulgar discussions about female body parts and a pornographic image of a woman in the office. Reeves complained to her coworkers, her supervisor, and top company executives, but the offensive conduct was "accepted and tolerated. "According to the 11th Circuit, "if Reeves's account is to be believed, C.H. Robinson's workplace was more than a rough environment--indiscriminately vulgar, profane, and sexual. Instead, a just reasonably could find that it was a workplace that exposed Reeves to disadvantageous terms or conditions of employment to which members of the other sex were not exposed." Moreover, the court stated that it was no defense to assert "that the workplace may have been vulgar and sexually degrading before Reeves arrived." Reeves v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc.,07-10270 (11th Cir. Jan. 20, 2010”

The plaintiff in this case did go to her co-workers supervisors, and executives and nothing was done regarding the sexual harassment in which she felt she was experiencing. For this reason the employer would be liable for the claim because nothing was done and the language and pornographic images remained. The employer could have called for a companywide meeting addressing sexual harassment and what it looks like and how it should be handled. Also the male employees was not reprimanded for their action which made it an uncomfortable work environment.

If the sexual harassers(s) were an independent contractor instead of an employee, Fleck (2013) stated, “Companies will claim their contractors control their own work and therefore the companies are not liable for complaints against them” (para. 11). This means that the company that hired the contractor is not liable for what the contractors do. The reason behind this is that the company may have so many contractors working for them that it may be entirely impossible to hold them all accountable for their allegedly unethical actions. Fleck (2013) stated, “When a company runs multiple worksites for unskilled contract laborers, it might avoid liability by claiming it cannot possibly oversee all worksites” (para. 11). When the harassment is being towards an employee instead of a contractor, there is liability for the employer to be accountable for in court. If the employee has gone through the proper protocol of notifying the employer of such harassment and the employer doesn’t take action at that moment, then the employer will liable for the harassment caused to the employee. “Courts have ruled that an employer is liable to a plaintiff employee for a hostile working environment created by fellow employees only when the employer knows of the problem and fails to take prompt and reasonable steps to correct it, such as by moving the harassers away from the plaintiff employee” (Shedd, Pagnattaro, & Cohey, 2012, p. 660).