harrasment

[dubbieauto]

I own a dealership. I left early today. A customer comes in for a test drive with his wife. One of my sales staff greets the customers and offers info. Harmless? This is a new one on me and I am in the car business! From that I receive a call from my sales manager, he informs me that a customer is considering filing a suit on behalf of his wife; due to the fact that my sales person upon shaking his wife's hand took an excessive amount of time to let go, then something regarding touching chest area. I call the customer get the story apologize over and over. Now here's where I am at a loss, I leave word at the dealership that I want this salesman in my office at nine am. I of course want to discuss this...right? So that my salesman who is in his late fifties can deny this allegation. That's pretty much a given. Ok, so now I have to show the customer that this is serious, do I need to fire him... can he come back on me for wrongful termination? Oh, I forgot to mention that nobody seen this occur, apparently as the husband explains it, the wife was on the other side of the vehicle and he was not witness to this his wife who he stated to me is a fitness freak and was wearing sort of workout clothing... tank top. I'm not saying it didn't happen... but I have never been in this position before. Can they sue me? Do I terminate the salesman's employment? I mean really, I'm a woman... yet I don't know what to think of this! Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated!

 

[Michael Wechsler]

If I had a dollar for every time somebody said they would sue someone and there wasn't a hope in the world that the lawsuit would come to fruition, I'd be rivaling Bill Gates on the Forbes 500 list. How much will their lawsuit be worth -- $100 only if they prevail for this earth-shakingly awful touching? Not to belittle the alleged event, this isn't a serious injury, e.g. broken arm.

Regarding your salesman, if he is an at-will employee with no contract of employment, you can terminate his employment without giving a reason. IMHO, you can just say "it isn't working out" and I am unaware of any basis for suit that the employee would have. There is no "fundamental right to continued employment" and you have the right to terminate an employee because you aren't comfortable with the employee in the given position.

Discrimination is a whole different matter and federal law deals with those issues. If you terminated someone merely because they were, e.g. of a certain race, that might be actionable. Remember that the case must be proven by the plaintiff and these cases usually occur when there is a pattern to suggest the discrimination. A good example is pregnant women -- usually easy to spot a pattern.

The manner in which you report the incident it would seem that you weren't too thrilled with this person's performance. But to be fair to the employee, it is possible that the customer had a chip on her shoulder, especially the fitness trainer who might be hypersensitive and believes that everyone wants her and can't control themselves -- not to make a generality but to suggest a possibility that I have seen before. Perhaps you were being set up and they were/are looking for a deal or for someone to "make up" to them the embarrassment that they allegedly suffered and nobody saw. You never know. Perhaps I say that because I've seen much in New York City!

Either way, you have a right to make your own decisions -- at least that is what I can see and common sense would seem to dictate the same thing.

 

[dubbieauto]

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