{"id":8427,"date":"2022-04-25T20:49:32","date_gmt":"2022-04-26T00:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/360mediations.com\/en\/?p=8427"},"modified":"2022-04-25T20:49:37","modified_gmt":"2022-04-26T00:49:37","slug":"a-slap-on-the-butt-could-end-up-with-your-butt-out-the-door","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mail.360mediations.com\/en\/a-slap-on-the-butt-could-end-up-with-your-butt-out-the-door\/","title":{"rendered":"A Slap on the Butt Could End Up With Your Butt out the Door"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In this recently released decision, the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld the dismissal for cause of a 30-year employee in managerial role after he slapped a female accounts manager in the buttocks during some friendly office banter amongst co-workers.\u00a0 The office banter was commonplace, and sometimes included male employees tapping each other on the buttocks with \u201cgood game\u201d type sentiments, emulating a locker room atmosphere.\u00a0 This did not happen, however, with female employees, but in this one instance it did occur.\u00a0 Although the female employee was up for gags and some cheeky dialogue with her fellow employees, the physical touching of a sexual part of her body was a line drawn too far, and she made it known instantly.\u00a0 Following an investigation, the manager was fired for cause solely on this one incident.<\/p>\n<p>A lot of factors went into the result, such as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the appellant was in a supervisory role;<\/li>\n<li>the employer had an anti-harassment and zero-tolerance policy, which was fresh in the dismissed employee\u2019s mind, having been communicated to him just eight days before the incident;<\/li>\n<li>the trial judge found that the appellant did not appreciate the seriousness of his action, even suggesting up to the trial that what he did was not sexual harassment;<\/li>\n<li>The trial judge concluded that the employee\u2019s lack of contrition and failure to understand the seriousness of his actions put into question whether the employment relationship could be maintained.<\/li>\n<li data-viibes-parag=\"40\" data-viibes-start=\"39\" data-viibes-end=\"38\">the joking office culture, that included inappropriate personal \u201cjokes,\u201d even against the dismissed employee, did not excuse the conduct;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Perhaps the strongest appeal argument was whether the dismissal for cause was proportionate: in other words, were there alternatives?\u00a0 The court accepted that there were no reasonable alternatives.\u00a0 In this regard:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Retaining the dismissed employee would send a message to other female employees that the impugned conduct was being condoned, especially for an employee in a supervisory role fastened with the responsibility to foster and promote the company\u2019s Anti-Harassment and Anti-Discrimination Policy;<\/li>\n<li>Treating other employees more leniently in the past was not a relevant factor since those examples were with non-managerial employees;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The appeal court\u2019s summation at paragraph 70 sums things up:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 80px;\">\u201c[70]\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I would also add that this was a most unfortunate situation that arose out of an overly familiar and, as a result, inappropriate workplace atmosphere that was allowed to get out of hand. As this court said in <em>Bannister<\/em> almost 25 years ago, it is a workplace atmosphere that can no longer be tolerated. \u00a0Although some may perceive it to be benign and all in good fun, those on the receiving end of personal \u201cjokes\u201d do not view it that way. And when things go too far, as they did in this case, the legal consequences can be severe. Every workplace should be based on mutual respect among co-workers. An atmosphere of mutual respect will naturally generate the boundaries of behaviour that should not be crossed.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Render v. ThyssenKrupp Elevator (Canada) Limited<\/em><\/strong>, 2022 ONCA 310<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.canlii.org\/en\/on\/onca\/doc\/2022\/2022onca310\/2022onca310.html\">https:\/\/www.canlii.org\/en\/on\/onca\/doc\/2022\/2022onca310\/2022onca310.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this recently released decision, the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld the dismissal for cause of a 30-year employee in managerial role after he slapped a female accounts manager in the buttocks during some friendly office banter amongst co-workers.\u00a0 The office banter was commonplace, and sometimes included male employees tapping each other on the buttocks&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/mail.360mediations.com\/en\/a-slap-on-the-butt-could-end-up-with-your-butt-out-the-door\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">A Slap on the Butt Could End Up With Your Butt out the Door<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-employment","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A Slap on the Butt Could End Up With Your Butt out the Door - 360Mediations<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sexual touching in the workplace is unacceptable, and if done by an employee in a supervisory role, it could lead to a dismissal for cause.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mail.360mediations.com\/en\/a-slap-on-the-butt-could-end-up-with-your-butt-out-the-door\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Slap on the Butt Could End Up With Your Butt out the Door - 360Mediations\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sexual touching in the workplace is unacceptable, and if done by an employee in a supervisory role, it could lead to a dismissal for cause.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/mail.360mediations.com\/en\/a-slap-on-the-butt-could-end-up-with-your-butt-out-the-door\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"360Mediations\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/360Mediations-120028596572318\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/360Mediations-120028596572318\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-04-26T00:49:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-04-26T00:49:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mail.360mediations.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/COURT-DECISIONS-360MEDIATIONS-1x1-1.png?fit=406%2C322&ssl=1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"406\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"322\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"David M. 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