Handling Volatile And Potentially Violent Situations 

(Published September 15, 2008)

 

Reprinted from MANAGER'S LEGAL BULLETIN, a widely read employment law newsletter that communicates legal guidelines to managers through scenarios based on real-life cases. Click here to view a sample issue, get more information, or sign up for a risk-free subscription.

 

It often seems that the legal gavel comes down on the side of employees, granting them more and more legal leeway and making it more and more difficult for managers to discipline or discharge their staff.  But not where violence is concerned.  In general, a manager's obligation to protect his/her employees from threatening or violent behavior eclipses an employee's right to employment.

 

DEVILISH AND DANGEROUS

 

Ray Carney left a series of letters, which he called "Letters From Hell," on the desk of his supervisor, Pete Terrell.  One of the letters was based on Shakespeare's Hamlet in which he cast Terrell and another supervisor as the characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.  In the letter, Carney wrote: "ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD."  He signed it, "Sinisterly, Lucifer, prince of darkness."

The company’s medical director disqualified Carney from work; he was suspended with pay pending a psychiatric fitness-for-duty examination.  Although the employee agreed to meet with a psychiatrist and show him the letters, he refused to participate in a complete psychiatric evaluation.  Despite Terrell's warnings that failure to submit to the exam was considered gross insubordination, Carney still refused, and he eventually lost his job.

After being fired, Carney showed up at a different company facility, asking about the location of and keys to Terrell's office.  When the manager learned of this, he asked the company to obtain a restraining order against the employee.  The company agreed and issued a no-trespass order.
 

Carney subsequently sued the company for invasion of privacy, among several other claims, for insisting that he undergo a full psychiatric evaluation, which included a complete medical and personal  history.  In weighing the employee's privacy interest against the employer's business interest, the court determined that the company's interest in determining whether the employee couldsafely perform his job outweighed the employee's interest in maintaining the privacy of his medical information.

Handle with care: You don't have to wait for an employee to make a direct threat in order to act.  The company acted reasonably by placing the employee on a paid suspension and ordering a psychiatric exam.  It only fired him after he refused to cooperate.

 

BETRAYAL AND BULLYING

 

When Jill Bennett's husband found out that she had been having an affair with her co-worker, he confronted her and told her he did not want her to continue working there.  Bennett called her manager, Lenny Sumner, and requested permission to take her remaining vacation days to resolve her personal issues.

During her time off, Bennett returned to the office to speak with Sumner.  She explained to him that she had been having an affair with a colleague, told him that she thought her husband might be suicidal, and informed him that her husband did not want her to continue to work with the co-worker.  Sumner interpreted Bennett's statements as a resignation.

While Bennett was still on leave, her husband called her lover on two separate occasions and warned him to stay away from his wife.  He also told the co-worker that he "was going to make his life as miserable as he had made his."  The co-worker reported the threats to Sumner.

When Bennett later informed Sumner that she and her husband had reconciled and that he no longer objected to her working with the co-worker, the manager told her that he had decided to accept her statement of resignation because of her husband’s threatening behavior.  Bennett subsequently sued for sex discrimination, claiming that the male co-worker was neither discharged nor disciplined for his role in the consensual affair, while she had lost her job.

A court of appeals dismissed her case, ruling that she had not been disciplined for engaging in a romantic relationship.  Instead, Sumner accepted her resignation because he feared her husband’s threats and worried that he might cause disruptions in the workplace in the future.

 

Handle with care: You can act accordingly when an employee is involved in a volatile situation, even if the employee is not the one who is engaging in threatening behavior.  Here, the employer didn’t do anything more than accept the employee’s resignation.  Termination would be legal due to at-will employment, but would it be appropriate?  It would if removing the employee from the workplace reduces the risk of violence.