Business Law - Employment Law - Sexual Harassmentr

Business Law - Employment Law - Sexual Harassment The Case of Julie McCoy versus Merrill Stubbell Name: Course title: Instructor: Institution: Date Due:  Business Law - Employment Law - Sexual Harassment The Case of Julie McCoy Verses Merrill Stubbell Background of the situation Julie McCoy who is a worker at We Love Boats (WLB) claims to have encountered sexual advances from her supervisor Merrill Stubbell while on night shift duties. In addition to that, he had requested her to sleep with him. These advances were met while everybody in the nightshift team was watching. Mc Coy had informed Stubbell that she did not appreciate the first comment and that it greatly unnerved her. She told him that it made it difficult for her to look her co-workers in the eye. However, that did not stop him from making the second comment. McCoy filed a Title VII sex harassment suit against WLB alleging that she had been the subject of sexual harassment. We Love Boats (WLB) has asked the court to dismiss the case since McCoy has failed to produce show a “prima facie” case, what do you think the court should do. I think it would be better if I started out by defining what the term "prima facie case" entails; this term in legal perspective means that the facts surrounding the circumstances that are necessary for a court case to be justified. It is considered important for an employee if filing a sexual suit to consider having “a prima facie” that is minimum set of facts (Herlitz, 1994). For the case of McCoy, the act of the supervisor indeed constitutes sexual harassment under title V11 of the federal laws of US (42 U.S.C. 2000e-2(a) (1). This is because sexual harassment constitutes any verbal expression, touching, unwelcome sexual advances and communication that is sexual in nature which is not warranted by the person directed at (29 C.F.R. 1604.11). It can cal also be sexually discriminatory expressions. All these were allegedly done by Mr. Merrill Stubbell, the supervisor of Julie McCoy. Both the Federal law and the USA labour strongly reject any sexual harassment by employees with regard to race, gender, religion, pregnancy, sexual orientation etc. The prohibition of this harassment may either be "quid pro quo", meaning that the harassment is related to whether the employee’s treatment at work is based on whether she or he accepts the senior’s advances or the offensive expressions, and or conduct by either the employee’s senior or colleague. Prohibited workplace harassment may take either of two of the forms (US department of labour, 2011). In case the management of WLB advocates for the termination of the case on assumption that there is there is no “prima facie”, the court should seek evidence if there were any co-worker(s) who had witnessed or heard Mr. Stubbell make the comments. It could be better to inquire from her night shift colleagues on the said dates to affirm if there is anybody other than McCoy who had witnessed the situation. Another thing for the court to do is to investigate if there are other cases of individuals who had been harassed at the workstations. This will provide enough “prima facie” for the court case to proceed. The court should also seek to establish if the complainant exhibited resistance to the harasser from the alleged sexual advances. The fact that the complainant filed the case can also be itself a confirmation that the sexual advance was unwelcome. During the trial of the Title VII case, McCoy is cross-examined. She admitted on cross-examination that she had laughed off the remarks and conduct by Stubbell, that she always thought that he was kidding and that the two had always remained friends after these incidents. However, her attorney also offered testimony of 11 other female witnesses, all of whom said that they would have been outraged, depressed and upset if these comments had been made to them. Each of them added that while Stubbell never approached them, they had been approached by various other Managers and Supervisors in similar ways. Each complained that she had gone to H.R. but each was advised that this could be harmful to a person’s career. QUESTION: How, if at all do the above facts assist or hurt either side in the case of McCoy v WLB? Please explain, 50 points. In the sexual harassment case, the victim does not have to be the one who was directly affected (Paludi, 1999). Evidences of other witnesses who were perturbed by the situation can as well be employed to ascertain the facts surrounding the issue. The witness clearly affirmed that, had the conduct of Stubbell been directed to them, and then they could have been outraged, depressed and upset, therefore illustrating the psychological and emotional aspects of these effects to the witnesses. In this case, even if McCoy decided not to implicate Stubbell in this issue due to her own reasons, which we may not deduce, the fact is that there were other colleagues who witnessed the incidences and were offended by Stubbell’s comments towards McCoy. That is ju...