Employers can be legally liable for harassment toward an employee caused by a third party, such as a customer, visitor, vendor or contractor.
A video recently surfaced of a server from a pizza restaurant in Savannah, Ga., who was an hour from her shift ending when a customer walked by her and groped her rear-end.
The security camera footage showed the server turned immediately, put him in a head lock, threw him to the ground and had him arrested. He was reportedly charged with sexual battery.
Her employer supported her actions against the customer.
Anyone with whom your employees interact can create a hostile work environment for them. If this happens, the employer can be legally liable.
In the example above, assume that the employee, instead of taking down the customer and having him arrested, simply told a manager about the customer’s conduct, or assume that the employee didn’t mention the customer’s conduct but a manager or owner observed the conduct by the customer.
Under either scenario, the manager or owner needs to take action to end the behavior.
To be liable for harassment by third parties, the courts will apply a negligence standard to employers, and hold the company liable if the behaviors were unwelcome; based on a protected class (such as gender); sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of her employment and create an abusive atmosphere; and that the company knew or should have known about the behavior and failed to take appropriate action to end it.
The manager should prohibit this type of touching even if it is thought to be consensual to avoid any misunderstanding.
The manager should then document what was observed/reported and then what was done or said to the customer to eliminate the misconduct in the future.
The law requires that the employer take some corrective action designed to end the misconduct in order to avoid legal liability and to make sure that the employee enjoys a workplace free from harassment.
Regardless of the industry, the employee never assumes the risk of being harassed at work.
Here’s an example.
An employee working for a medical practice claimed that a patient used a racial slur to her during a call, but the call wasn’t recorded and the practice’s management didn’t feel it was in the patient’s best interest to terminate him as a patient.
In this scenario, the employer can send the patient a letter advising the patient of the standard of conduct relating to respect for its staff, and warning the patient that if he fails to treat staff in a respectful, professional and non-discriminatory manner that he will be terminated as a patient.
Too often organizations who are on notice of inappropriate behavior by third parties, especially customers, will ignore the issue, believing the third party to be harmless, amusing, or a mere nuisance.