Retaliation claims are some of the most frequently filed cases against companies by their employees. It seems that it’s almost a part of human nature for managers to retaliate against their subordinates for making complaints or for asking for something that makes managers’ life harder (such as requesting accommodations to a disability, or requesting medical leave) or forces them to make certain decisions that may put their career at risk, in case any such decision turns out to be wrong and backfires. Retaliation seems to just one kind of a powerful human driver for revenge.
The kinds of risky management decisions that managers hate to get involved in include being forced to spend time and resources on investigating the harassment and discrimination complaints made by employees, and disciplining the alleged harassers as a result of those complaints, while running the risk of being sued by the very same harasser, if he is being fired.
Managers Tend to Retaliate For Making a Harassment or Discrimination Complaint
Imagine a situation where a white woman complains that a black male co-worker is sexually harassing her. The employer conducts an investigation by interviewing both parties and potential witnesses, among other things. The accusations are confirmed by the witnesses. That manager then decides to fire the harasser. Shortly after, that harasser files a lawsuit for racial discrimination with or without having any evidence that he was actually fired because of his race. Even though that lawsuit will likely go nowhere, it will still be a significance headache to the employer and even if the case is dismissed for lack of evidence, it will still costs many thousands of dollars of the company to get that case dismissed. Then, the manager who fired the black worker gets questioned by his managed about his investigation and the decision to terminate that employee. – This is a fairly common scenario, and the kind of situation managers really want to avoid.
Managers May Retaliate for Requesting Medical / Disability Leave
Another typical scenario in which managers are likely to retaliate is when an employee applies for disability or medical leave. If the manager becomes concerned that not having that employee around for months is going to affect his department’s productive and the ability to meet deadlines, that manager is going to start getting concerned about how he is going to look to his manager. This concern can translate into trying to deny in whole or in part the requested medical leave or trying to otherwise retaliate against the employee by micromanaging him, issuing a negative performance review or otherwise unfairly accusing an employee of substandard performance and/or policy violations.