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Bloom & Buell's |
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Alert |
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Bloom & Buell's |
Zoe Baird found out, much to her chagrin, that it's easy to be considered an "employer".
With that in mind, we thought our readers might be interested in recent developments in Massachusetts employment law as compiled by one of our partners and published this month in the Massachusetts Defense Lawyers' Association Issue Update.
Some of these cases are quite technical. What isn't so technical, though, is the quarter of a million-dollar chunks which the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination has handed out in punitive damages this year. One case, which was decided after these materials went to press, involved a female police dispatcher in a small relatively wealthy ex-urban community who was the victim of such sexual harassment in the police department that she had to quit. The MCAD awarded her $250,000 for her emotional distress.
For our readers who already know that they are employers, those who by reading along might find, to their surprise, that they are indeed employers, and those who thought it would be really neat and risk-free to serve as pro-forma President of that Professional Corporation or that health care system subsidiary (have we left anyone out?), we suggest a quick read of this article, and perhaps a quick pass by counsel before taking any employee action. As some of these case notes indicate, it is those employee actions which are "so blatant" that they "don't need to be looked at by a lawyer" (and who wants to talk to a lawyer anyway?) which have caused the employers to be forever memorialized in our law books.
This commentary is not intended as legal advice. For advice on a specific case, you should contact the attorneys directly. Pursuant to Rule 3:07 of the Supreme Judicial Court Rules of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this communication may be considered advertising.
