Posted by Garrison, Levin-Epstein, Fitzgerald & Pirrotti, P.C. in News
Apr 15 2025
Dan Schwartz: What are some of the flaws that you see on how companies respond to, say, an initial employee complaint? How do they take what should be perhaps a straightforward situation and mess it up from there?
Nina Pirrotti: And botch it, right? So, this is and this is a subject that’s near dear to my heart. I’ve spoken on this, I’ve written on this – investigations and the way they are done, something that I hype and we plaintiff’s employment lawyers, hyper scrutinize when it comes to evaluating a case. So from the get go there needs to be a prompt and thoughtful response.
I once had a scenario where the prompt and thoughtful response to sexual harassment allegations, when the other person denied it and said, oh, she was sexually harassing me, was they suspended both employees without pay. We were even handed, we suspended both the person who alleged sexual harassment and the guy who denied it, without paying. Didn’t we do good? No, you did not do good.
So, what you need to do is do prompt, thorough, thoughtful investigations. They start with interviewing the client and doing it in a way, Dan, that makes sure that the client feels safe and heard and not have the proverbial white light in the room. So, the question isn’t, why didn’t you bring this up to us sooner? The question is, help me understand, how it is that we’re here today. Can you walk me through that please? It’s respectful, thoughtful interview of the client and then it’s following of the employee, and then it’s following through on who the complaining employee needs as witnesses and the documents that she needs too.
I can’t tell you how often people come to me and say, I tried to share my cell phone with them. They said I’m not interested; where I tried to direct them to these three individuals and then we find out from these three individuals, no, no one ever got in touch with me. So, it’s following through there on speaking with witnesses, on reviewing documents, on making credibility assessments.
Just because it’s,” he said, she said,” you don’t throw up your hands and say, oh can’t do anything. You evaluate who has the motive to lie? What are the facts that we know about in the periphery are consistent with what she is saying. Does she appear in demeanor, in words and actions to be sincere and what she’s bringing forth.
But let me also say this – I think you’d have to provide resources to the employee. It’s so important that you raise whatever it is that you have out on the table if you have therapy available to the employee. If you have the opportunity for the employee to take a period of time off encouraging the employee, for example, to take some form of FMLA leave if it’s warranted. If she’s or he is suffering from some serious fallout for what has happened to them.
And then keeping them informed as much as you can without violating confidentiality so they don’t feel they’re completely left in the dark while this whole process is going on. You let them know. Check in with them periodically. How are you doing? Listen, we’re proceeding, we’re interviewing witnesses. We’re reviewing the documents you shared with us, and finally, making the precedents complaining feel heard, validated, respected. It’s just so important. It’s a recipe for success.
Dan Schwartz: Appreciate your perspective on that. And I think handling complaints really varies based on the size of the employer, the industry. There are some employers that are just more sophisticated and can handle that internally, and there are some employers who would be best off maybe relying on either an outside counsel or an outside HR person who might have the time to handle it.
And I will say, we’ve seen now more investigations that could be conducted virtually via Zoom teams, whatever. And so the days of we need to get someone in there. We need to talk to someone in person. You can do it now virtually. And we’ve also seen people now start to record these and use them as a transcript where you know the accuracy of it because you have a transcript. And that can really help on an investigation.
Posted by Garrison, Levin-Epstein, Fitzgerald & Pirrotti, P.C. in News
Tagged Podcast
