In the landmark case Faragher v. the City of Boca Raton the court said that companies need to take reasonable care to prevent harassment or they can be liable for actions by their employees, even if the company was unaware of these options.
Having a Sexual Harassment policy and training is no longer an option for organizations. In the landmark case Faragher v. The City of Boca Raton, the court ruled 7-2 that employers can be liable for harassing behavior by their employees if they did not exercise reasonable care to prevent harassment. In other words, if the organization failed to training and present policy to their employees and harassment occurred, then the employer can be liable even if they didn't know about the harassment.
In Faragher v. The City of Boca Raton, Lifeguard Beth Faragher and several other women experienced harassment by their supervisors. The City had virtually no harassment policy. The court held that an organization is liable for Sexual Harassment unless they showed "reasonable care" to prevent and correct the problem. In other words, to avoid liability the organization needs to have a comprehensive harassment policy and plan in place.
Every organization needs to train all their employees on what Sexual Harassment is and what behaviors are unacceptable in the workplace. Every employee should sign a copy of the policy saying that they understand that the organization has zero tolerance for these behaviors. There also should be a program in place for employees to file a complaint, so that the organization can rectify the situation and stop the harassment.
There is no magic bullet that will completely protect a company from liability, however with a strong policy and plan in place their chances of losing a sexual harassment claim greatly diminish. Every organization should have legal counsel assist in their harassment policy and constant training and re-training should occur so that their employees are always following the policy.
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