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Per the article, “The difference between the hiring and retention claims is when the employer became aware of a threatening employee; often, the arguments are that employers inadequately screened job applicants or failed to act on complaints about an employee who later committed a violent act.”

The story concerns workplace violence and employee behavior that can be hostile, threatening or violent. This can lead to lawsuits seeking damages for emotional distress, a hostile workplace, all the way to damages stemming form violence where a person is the victim of a workplace crime. The article noted that, “In a bad economy, stress increases and people’s fuses get shorter.”
The article cites a study in the 1990s, where “liability expert Norman D. Bates conducted a study that found workplace violence tort cases averaged $500,000 per settlement and a $3 million per jury verdict.”

According to the article: “The potential for litigation seems to be high, based on U.S. Department of Labor statistics. On average, more than 2 million acts of violence occur in the workplace every year. When it comes to assaults, women are targeted at a much higher rate than men, both in Connecticut and nationally. From 2005-07, the U.S. Department of Labor tracked 1,250 non-fatal workplace assaults in Connecticut, and women were the targets in 77 percent of those cases. On the national level during the same period, women were targeted in 63 percent of the more than 47,000 non-fatal assaults.”

The article discussed that while many employers are focused on preventing workplace homicides, there are many lesser acts of hostility, such as workplace intimidation, bullying, sexual harassment and psychological abuse that can be red flags for future violence that also need to be addressed. See: Taking Aim At Workplace Disputes at http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?ID=35073

Employers have a substantial incentive to ensure that they are hiring qualified workers. One bad hire can create a legal and financial nightmare. Without conducting due diligence in hiring, an employer risks hiring someone with an unsuitable criminal record, false credentials, workplace violence, business interruption, embezzlement and a host of other issues.

If an employer hires someone that they either knew or should have known, in the exercise of reasonable care, was dangerous, unfit, unqualified or dishonest, then that employer can face a lawsuit for negligent hiring if that hire caused damages or commits a crime. Negligent hiring is the opposite of due diligence. Of course, employers do not intentionally go out of their way to hire a bad employee. If an employer makes a bad hiring decision, and someone is harmed, then the jury is usually faced with the issue of whether the employer reasonably “should have known” that the applicant represented a risk.

Many employers feel they are at a disadvantage when sued for negligent hiring or retention. Cases will normally have some sort of serious harm (death, assault, rape, sodomy, child molestation, theft, embezzlement, identity theft). That is because the lawyer for the plaintiff (the injured party that is suing) often is working on a contingency fee, and will normally only invest time and money in serious cases. Jurors are often employees themselves and may not feel overly sympathetic to an employer that had the ability, duty and resources to prevent harm through due diligence. As a rule of thumb, unless an employer has a compelling reason why an injury is not its fault, the employer has a tough job defending these suits. Even if the employer wins, it is at the expense of negative publicity and a great deal of time, money and effort spent involved in the litigation. (For potential employer defenses that can effective, see the next article)

As every human resource professional knows, the major source of employee problems are problem employees. Efforts at minimizing the hiring of problem employees go a long ways towards creating a safe and profitable workplace.

Written and reported by www.ESRCheck.com 11/25/09