Dan Schwartz at the Connecticut Employment Law Blog posts today about treating harassment complaints seriously and taking appropriate action, but not overreacting.
Coincidentally, I make the same exact point in the February 2008 issue of InsideCounsel, discussing Brenneman v. Famous Dave's of America, a sexual harassment case I originally reported on in November:
The court recognized "a company doesn't have to be perfect," explains Jonathan Hyman, an employment lawyer with Kohrman Jackson & Krantz."So if a company gets a complaint of harassment, has an adequate policy, undertakes an investigation ... and then makes what it thinks is a reasoned remedial step to stop the harassment, courts much more often than not aren't going to second-guess what the company does. The remedial measures don’t have to be perfect either; they just have to be reasonable and adequate," he says.