Press & News

Gerald Skoning Published in The National Law Journal
"Bizarre workplaces of 2006"
05/21/2007

Gerald's annual Top 10 "Bizarre workplaces of 2006" appears in the May 21, 2007 issue of the National law Journal. Among "this year's survey of the top 10 bizarre employment law situations . . . of workplace wackiness" are: 

• The California superior court in Los Angeles certified an arbitrator's decision that Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt must pay $1.1 million to a former secretary who alleged that having to comply with Flynt's trysts with prostitutes in his private office created a hostile work environment.
• Two employees of a Boise, Idaho, ice skating rink were fired for making a midnight fast-food run with two Zambonis.
• A California jury has awarded $1.7 million to a female sales employee on her claim for sexual harassment against her former employer alleging that she was spanked on three occasions in what the company called a "camaraderie-building exercise."
• A Drug Enforcement Administration agent who accidentally shot himself in the foot while demonstrating gun safety to school children is suing the agency, saying that a video of the incident has made him the laughing stock of the Internet. Moments before the shooting, Lee Paige, a 14-year agency veteran, told the students he was the only one in the room professional enough to handle a gun.
• The 8th Circuit has ruled that a supervisor who spied through a peephole into a women's restroom for years and placed a substance apparently containing poison ivy on the toilet seat did not create hostile environment liability for the employer. The court ruled that an employee "may only rely on evidence relating to harassment of which she was aware during the time she was allegedly subjected to a hostile work environment."