Labor & Employment Law

Lower court holds termination was not justified despite misrepresentations on resume and sexual harassment allegations

Lower court holds termination was not justified despite misrepresentations on resume and sexual harassment allegations

Source: Adjunct Law Prof Blog; Reproduced with permission. Copyright © 2008, Mitchell H. Rubinstein, Esq., Adjunct Professor of Law, St. Johns Law School and New York Law School, All rights reserved

National Medical Health Card v. Fallarino, ___Misc. 3d___ (N.Y. Co. 2008) is an interesting decision. An employee's termination from an executive human resources position was not justified, and he thus was entitled to severance pay under his employment contract, even though he misrepresented his employment history on his resume and was investigated by the employer for sexual harassment. The employer failed to conduct a background check prior to hiring the employee, and did not discover the misrepresentations until after it had terminated the employee. Incidents alleged by two co-workers did not rise to the level of actionable sexual harassment, and the real motivation for the termination was to avoid having sexual harassment allegations pending when a corporate takeover was imminent.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Full post as published by New York Public Personnel Law on September 29, 2008 (boomark / email).