SUE ME ONCE, SHAME ON ME; SUE ME TWICE, SHAME ON ME EVEN MORE

If an employee sues your company for sexual harassment, discrimination, wage and hour violations, retaliation or other unfair workplace practices, what should you do?

Many companies make a big mistake: they blame the “problem” employee instead of examining their own potentially flawed business practices or HR practices. This “head-in-the-sand” approach can set you up for a second, unrelated lawsuit or for additional legal trouble from the first employee.

Perhaps the employee’s complaints had merit. If so, drill down and address the root causes that provoked the problem.

Alternatively, perhaps you believe the claims were baseless, made up, or needlessly mean-spirited. If so, you still want to examine what went wrong that led to the lawsuit. Perhaps, for instance, your Human Resources department did not do a thorough job of vetting prospective hires. If that is the case, you need to fix HR’s processes, stat.

On the other hand, maybe you failed to get the full story. Perhaps your supervisors were not fully forthcoming about what happened. If that is the case, you need to investigate your own internal communication processes and fix those.

There is almost always a lesson to learn. For help getting to the bottom of your California employment lawsuit – whether you need to defend against an imminent suit or just “pick up the pieces” after a legal action – get in touch with Southern California employment law attorney, Nancy Gray, today for a free consultation.