Riordan Mfg. Legal Risk & Opportunity

Legal Risk and Opportunity in Employment

Amy Hurley

University of Phoenix

Business Law/LAW 531

Christine Benway

December 13, 2009

Legal Encounter One

Pat was hired by NewCorp as a manager of real property in Vermont and relocated from another city 300 miles away from this job. Pat believes he was wrongfully discharged due to the “Notice of Unsatisfactory Performance/Corrective Action Plan” stated in the personnel manual. The personnel manual states, “If the job performance of an employee is unsatisfactory, the employee will be notified of deficiency and placed on a corrective action plan. If the employee’s performance does not improve to a satisfactory level in the specified period of time, termination will follow.” Although Pat signed an understanding upon employment that the company observed employment at will, he believed this was minimal due to the personnel manual.

Pat may bring a wrongful discharge suit against the company because the personnel manual can be considered a contract. Most jurisdictions in the United States uphold the personnel manual as a contract (USLegal Law Digest, 2008). To avoid this lawsuit, it would be in the best interest of NewCorp to settle the dispute outside the court system and to the satisfaction of both parties.

Legal Encounter Two

Sexual harassment is defined as unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or other conduct of a sexual nature that:

• Explicitly or implicitly are a condition of employment, or

• Are used to make a hiring or other employment decision, or

• Unreasonably interfere with a person’s performance or create an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment. Sexual harassment can be verbal conduct, physical conduct, or both and it generally must be severe and pervasive.

According to the text, sexual harassment cases take two forms, quid pro cases and atmosphere of harassment (Jennings, 2006). Quid pro cases consist of those in which an employee is...