Anucha Browne Sanders V. Isiah Thomas & Madison Square Gardens

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executive. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com

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Ashley Alford V. Aaron’s Inc.

In 2005, Ashley Alford was hired at Aarons and alleged that her male co-workers soon began harassing her and they were led by the store’s general manager, Richard Moore. The two main allegations that Alfords are 1) Moore hit Alford on the head with his penis, and 2) Moore held Alford down, lifted her skirt and masturbated on her chest. Alford sued Aarons in 2008 because she reported that she called the company’s hotline to report the sexual harassment and never heard anything back from corporate. She won a hefty settlement against Aarons on the basis of sexual harassment.

- The employee, Ashley Alford, did the right think in this case by taking the appropriate steps by calling the hotline to report the sexual harassment. The employer, Aarons, did not take the appropriate steps because they made no effort to contact Alford to try and settle the problem and discuss any solutions or steps made available to her.

- I agree whole-heartedly with the court’s decision in this case. There is a saying “side a, side b, and the truth”. We do not know is the allegations that Alford claims did indeed take place, but if any semblance of her story is true, I think she deserves a hefty payment. I know this may sound contradictory to my statement earlier so please let me explain. In this case Miss Alford, in a way, was practically raped and that can leave severe traumatic scars on a person. I may be a bit bias on this subject, but the question was how do I ‘feel’.

- Human Resources should have addressed the situation immediately. They should have privately called Miss Alford and made reports and complaints of all the allegations that Miss Alford had. They should have then came to the particular store and talked with employees and Mr. Moore and gotten their version of the incidents. Miss Alford should have immediately been transferred to another store or discussed options available to her.

- There are several things that Miss Alford could have done, with that glaring option being to quit. This unfortunately, while being an option, isn’t a remedy to the situation because this leave Miss Alford with no way to support herself or her possible family. This option will also allow Mr. Moore to continue his alleged attacks on any other workers that he hires to replace Miss Alford. In an effort to keep her job, Miss Alford took the appropriate steps and called a sexual harassment hotline that was undoubtedly suggested to her in her training.

- The same laws as above are violated here, maybe not in the same way but were none the less violated.

- A decision like this, really any decision that find a company at fault should force all human resource managers to take a look at their policies and procedures and if they in fact are working. In this particular, it is unclear as to why Aarons Corporation did not get back to Miss Alford but if I had to guess I would say that there was a communication breakdown. I imagine that since a hotline is the main resource for reporting harassment, and not actually talking to a person then I am sure another person would be taking down messages that appear on the hotline. Either those messages were not relayed to the correct person, or the message was somehow missed or deleted. In this case, Aarons may want to consider instilling a new option to report harassment.

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References for this Case:

Wlader, N. (2011, June 10). Illinois jury awards $95 million in sex-harassment suit [Newsgroup

post]. Retrieved from Reuters website: http://www.reuters.com