Sexual Harassment: Hospital Can Fire Male Employee For Fondling, Kissing Co-Worker's Young Daughter
Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession
June 1996
Fondling and kissing a co-worker’s twelve-year-old daughter is grounds for a hospital to dismiss a man employed as a patient representative, the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division recently ruled.
The case came to court as an appeal filed by the fired employee to contest being denied unemployment benefits by the state department of labor. The commissioner of the department of labor had ruled that he was dismissed for misconduct which justified termination. The court agreed he was guilty of substantial misconduct justifying termination for cause, and was not entitled to draw unemployment.
An investigator for the hospital obtained a statement from the girl that the man had kissed her and touched her private parts. The employee admitted kissing her, but denied the touching. The court accepted the girl’s statement. It ruled the evidence fully supported the hospital’s decision to terminate this individual.
Akhtar vs. Sweeny, 638 N.Y.S. 2d 520 (A.D., 1996).