Christmas came a few days early for Iowan employers, when the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that a male employer acted legally when he fired a female employee because he had become irresistibly attracted to her – a situation the employer’s wife, also an employee, found objectionable.
In this day and age, all employers know that sexual harassment in the workplace is wrong. Right? Not so fast. If the allegations set forth in a case filed in in Utah on August 4, 2011 prove to be true, there is at least one supervisor out there who simply does not get it.
As alleged by Trudy Nycole Anderson, a former employee of Lone Peaks Control, Inc., her direct supervisor subjected her to unlawful sexual harassment. The supervisor’s alleged behavior included: frequent references to Ms. Anderson’s body; unwanted sexual touching; soliciting Ms. Anderson for sex; and viewing pornography on his office computer. Ms. Anderson further asserts that the company failed to take reasonable and necessary steps to promptly correct or prevent the harassment, and retaliated against her for asking that the behavior be stopped.
