Jill Chasson Explores How Social Media Can Foster a Hostile Work Environment in HR Laws Article

With the pervasiveness of social media, employers may overlook how employees’ personal activity can give rise to workplace harassment claims. In an article for HR Laws, Partner Jill Chasson examined a recent 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision, which confirmed an employee’s personal social media account can be a source of harassment in the workplace. In her piece, Jill details a recent case involving a psychologist at a federal prison who discovered a coworker’s Instagram filled with hundreds of sexually and racially offensive posts, some of which specifically targeted her. Despite reporting this account to prison authorities, her concerns were ignored initially and later dismissed. This escalated to more harassment from the account and ultimately led the psychologist to transfer to a different facility and...

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Jill Chasson Contributes HRLaws Article on Employers Paying a High Price for Discrimination

Workplace discrimination remains at large – but not without consequences. In an article for HRLaws, Jill Chasson addressed the costly repercussions of recent workplace lawsuits and why employers must remain vigilant – taking swift and appropriate action when a discrimination concern is raised. In her piece, Jill shed light on two significant U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) workplace discrimination settlements, each of which cost the employer a half-million dollars (plus what was surely several hundred thousand dollars in legal fees). In one case, the EEOC sued a Phoenix-based steel company for failing to adequately address a years-long pattern of offensive and hostile comments by a plant manager. In the second case, a Colorado-based pharmacy company was accused of improperly using medical and genetic information to...

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