Civil Litigation Process For Sexual Harassment

Civil Litigation Process For Sexual Harassment

Prompt:

You are in charge of the human resources division of a large software development company. One of your responsibilities is to work with the company's retained law firm on suits against the company by present and former employees. A former employee has just filed suit against the company and one of its supervisor's for sexual harassment. The citation has been served upon the authorized agent for the company today. You have also been advised today that you are going to be promoted to senior vice president in charge of software development and that the new human resources director has little experience with matters related to civil litigation. You must orient the new director to the mechanics of how a civil lawsuit works its way through the legal system so that she can integrate her activities with that of the law firm in defense of the newly filed suit

Prepare a three (3) to five (5) page memo to the new director generally describing the litigation process.

To: Manager, HR department

From: Vice President

Date: 5/18/14

Subject: Litigation process for recent lawsuit of sexual harassment

Over view

The following document is a description of sexual harassment litigation process and my proposals to create a manual policy on sexual harassment cases.

The Stages of Sexual Harassment Litigation

1. Beginning of Controversy and Attempts to Resolve Conflict

"Having an litigation goal''

The goal of the case should be determined as early as possible, by the facts, witnesses, forum and client, because it will dictate how you will manage the litigation. For instance, if the forum, facts and client indicate that (1) summary judgment is ...

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...uld establish, distribute to all employees, and enforce a policy prohibiting harassment and setting out a procedure for making complaints. In most cases, the policy and procedure should be in writing.

· Small businesses may be able to discharge their responsibility to prevent and correct harassment through less formal means. For example, if a business is sufficiently small that the owner maintains regular contact with all employees, the owner can tell the employees at staff meetings that harassment is prohibited, that employees should report such conduct promptly, and that a complaint can be brought "straight to the top." If the business conducts a prompt, thorough, and impartial investigation of any complaint that arises and undertakes swift and appropriate corrective action, it will have fulfilled its responsibility to "effectively prevent and correct harassment."