Pennsylvania Employer Liable For Firing Employee Who Filed Criminal Charges Against Co-Worker
In a case of first impression, the Pennsylvania Superior Court held that an employer may not terminate an employee for filing criminal charges against a co-worker [Rodgers v. Lorenz and Carload Express, 2011 Pa. Super. 154 (2011)].
This case arose out of employee Rodgers’ complaints about a co-worker’s harassment. In March 2005, Rodgers and his co-worker Lorenz were employed as train conductors by Carload Express when Lorenz threatened to “choke Rodgers to death and thump his skull” and proceeded to choke him. After Rodgers reported the incident to the Vice President of Operations, Rodgers was rescheduled to a different jobsite. Later that year, however, Lorenz and Rodgers again worked at the same jobsite. During a shift change, Lorenz further harassed Rodgers. Then in December 15, 2005, Lorenz threatened to “kick the [expletive] out of Rodgers and kill him.” As Rodgers backed out of the room, Lorenz spit in Rodgers’ face and said “I know where you live, and I won’t hesitate to come there and kill you.”
The next day, Rodgers told the Vice President of Operations that he was calling the police and filing criminal charges against Lorenz. The VP asked Rodgers not to file criminal charges. Two days later Rodgers called the police and reported Lorenz’s harassing actions. Rodgers was fired later that day. Rodgers thereafter filed a complaint, alleging that Carload Express wrongfully terminated him for planning to attend criminal proceedings against Lorenz pursuant to the Crime Victims Employment Protection Act, which provides:
An employer shall not deprive an employee of his employment, seniority position or benefits, or threaten or otherwise coerce him with respect thereto, because the employee attends court by reason of being a victim of, or a witness to, a crime or a member of such victim’s family. Nothing in this section shall be construed to require the employer to compensate the employee for employment time lost because of such court attendance.
The Pa. Superior Court reversed the trial court’s ruling that the Crime Victims Employment Protection Act only affords protection to crime victims after their court attendance, and not before. The Superior Court explained that the Pennsylvania Legislature sought to ensure through this Act that crime victims could attend court proceedings without concern as to their employment status. Although the protected activity is “court attendance”, the Act provides no temporal limits on this protected activity. Thus, the Court held it would be absurd to prohibit an employer from terminating a crime victim’s employment after he attended court proceedings but permit termination provided the employer acts preemptively.
In reaching this decision, the Court presumed that all parties understood that the filing employee would necessarily be required to attend court proceedings as a result of filing the criminal charge against Lorenz. Therefore, the Court only required the employee to plead that he was terminated because of his intention to attend a court hearing, even if such an intention was not expressly made to the employer. In light of this decision, employers should carefully document its reasons for taking an adverse employment action against an employee who has recently filed criminal charges against another in order to avoid any claim that the employee was being retaliated against under the Crime Victims Employment Protection Act.
