Comments on: EEOC demonstrates modest settlement value of many harassment cases

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 19:20:00 +0000

I’m a disabled veteran, working for the dept of veterans affairs. An angry administrator threw a noose at me in a conference room which was witnessed by her subordinates.
During mediation she admitted what she did. In depositions she denies all. What are my chances of imposing Manifest Injustice to get the mediators to testify?

By: George

George — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 15:19:00 +0000

If the EEOC cares about setting examples, what kind of example do they set by not caring a whit about damages? Of course they care about damages.

Of course companies have to take action to prevent harassment. If my post suggested otherwise, such implication was not intended.

That said, harassment, or allegations of it, will still occur at predictable -- if lower -- rates, despite employers' best efforts.

I speak from the perspective of having seen too many plaintiffs and their lawyers overvalue these cases. How do you know what a case is worth? I suggest EEOC settlements, which are regularly publicized, are one place to look.

Very little detail has been provided about this case. It is very true that while EEOC likes big, splashy cases, it also will take smaller, apparently more ordinary cases like this one. I suspect it does so when the facts are extremely bad for the employer -- most likely complete failure to respond to repeated employee complaints about severe harassment, or to even have a harassment policy in place.

So my assumption is that this was quite a strong case. Which makes the damages, while certainly not chump change, underwhelming to a lawyer used to seeing single plaintiffs demanding hundreds of thousands in fairly weak cases facing pretty good odds of summary judgment in favor of the employer (meaning they would recover goose eggs).

By: katall

katall — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 04:13:00 +0000

Now, come on. Your comments are ridiculous.

The lesson to be learned is not that the vast majority of cases merit "modest damages". To the contrary, the lesson to be learned is that the EEOC will not stand for blatant harassment in the workplace.

The EEOC, as an institution, could not care a wit about damages. The EEOC cares about setting examples. This case sets an example. The EEOC is happy.

The employees get $20k each. Not bad, but, perhaps they could have gotten more. On the other hand, if they sued on their own, they may have gotten nothing. They may have gotten millions, who knows?

You should be warning companies that they have to take action to prevent harassment. $84,000, while not millions, is not chump change.