Topic Spotlight

Inter-office romance has HR preparing for sexual harassment claims

Inter-office romances can lead to problems with employee productivity, retention and motivation and there may be legal implications as well. Such romances can lead to sexual harassment claims, particularly when the relationship involves an executive and a subordinate.

Wal-Mart case put inter-office romance in spotlight. Last December, Wal-Mart marketing exec Julie Roehm was fired by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Roehm promptly filed suit, claiming that the company failed to give her severance and that the retailer didn't return some personal belongings. In March, Wal-Mart countersued, armed with evidence that Roehm had a romantic relationship with Sean Womack, Roehm's subordinate, along with alleging that she and Womack were seeking jobs with an ad agency that was bidding on a contract with Wal-Mart.

The suit filed by Wal-Mart includes evidence of the alleged affair in the form of e-mails turned over to the employer by Womack's wife, Shelley Womack. Interestingly, the e-mails were found in a private account and created on Womack's personal computer, not at the workplace.

The impact of technology on sexual harassment claims

Today’s workplace is nothing short of technologically driven, so it should come as no surprise that technology—and in particular, email—plays a starring role in most sexual harassment claims. In the Wal-Mart case, email evidence was introduced that came from the employee’s private computer. It is a well established practice for employers to revoke, generally in a policy, employees’ expectations of privacy, but this seems to be unchartered territory. The question is: Do employees have a right to privacy in emails sent from a private computer to a coworker?

Employer’s access to workplace computers. "Employers generally have unfettered rights to access employee email and computer and phone systems if the employer has adequately reduced employees' expectation of privacy in electronic communications," said Lynn D. Lieber, Esq., an employment law attorney. "Employers reduce employees' expectations of privacy by having policies, handbook statements or other documents—written or electronic—which notify employees that all electronic communications are owned by the employer and that employees do not have privacy rights to those communications."

What about private, home computers? Both you and your employees might be surprised to learn that employee's personal emails could be subject to disclosure in the event of litigation. This is exactly what the Wal-Mart case has brought attention to. "The laws regarding what evidence is 'discoverable' in lawsuits are very broad—generally litigants are permitted to request anything relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending action," said Lieber. "An employee’s personal emails would be subject to discovery if the employee brings suit against their employer, the employer sues the employee or even if the employee is a coworker who sends or receives personal emails to another employee who is a litigant."

Technology has put sexual harassment law into overdrive. According to Lieber, the impact of technology on sexual harassment is perhaps best demonstrated by this real-life example: ...

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