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Legal Risk and Opportunity in Employment

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Legal Risk and Opportunity in Employment

Law 531
Charles Cook
February 7, 2011 Legal Risk and Opportunity in Employment
Legal Encounter 1 NewCorp violated a breach of contract with Pat in this case. While NewCorp is an “at-will” employer, they provided an employee handbook to Pat which outlined the procedure for disciplinary process involving the requirement of corrective action. NewCorp failed to follow their own process which supports the wrongful termination suit. Additionally, the case law which would be applicable to this case is Dillon v. Champion Jogbra, Inc. The case has many similarities which can support Pat's claim of wrongful discharge. For example, the implied contract relating to the action stated within the employee handbook to follow a procedure for discipline and/or corrective action prior to discharge. Because NewCorp did not imply that the employee handbook was not a contract at any point within the handbook. Therefore, Pat has grounds for action against NewCorp.
Legal Encounter 2 NewCorp has two issues to face in this scenario. The first being the sexual harassment by Sam toward Paula. Sexual harassment is “defined by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature when: submission to the conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual’s employment, or submission to or rejection of the conduct by an individual is used as a ,basis for employment decisions affecting such individual, or the conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.

Because Paula explicitly told Sam to stop and he continued to exhibit the unwelcome behavior, this constitutes sexual

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