Recently in Sexual Harassment / Workplace Harassment Category

It looks like Alycia Lane’s lawsuit against her employer won’t stand. According to Philebrity, a Philadelphia judge has thrown out a lawsuit brought by the former CBS Philadelphia news anchor after she was dismissed by the Philadelphia CBS affiliate.

Her lawsuit alleged defamation but went back the theory of wrongful dismissal and the idea that her employer could have done a better job protecting her from the alleged invasion of privacy she endured at the hands of a coworker.

In her lawsuit, Lane alleges that her former co-host hacked into her email account, leaking private information. Some of this information involved an arrest in New York. The man behind the hacking: Larry Mendte, who alleges that he was also Lane’s former lover.

With the holidays coming up, a little bit of egg-nog and some mistletoe can go a long way. All the way to a sexual harassment lawsuit, that is.

So with the holidays approaching, what can employers do to protect themselves from these lawsuits? And what do employees need to know about what is appropriate and what constitutes sexual harassment?

Many job-related problems could be avoided if we knew how to manage difficult people. If we could nip the problem in the bud, then we wouldn't have the need to go to a lawsuit.

And even if an employment lawsuit is inevitable, there are still ways to arm yourself gracefully, while gathering the evidence needed for your lawsuit. The truth is that the grounds for a wrongful dismissal lawsuit start well in advance. For instance, maybe you have a difficult boss and that boss starts making your life a living hell.

More news regarding the Penn State/Jerry Sandusky scandal. Reports are now emerging that Graham B. Spanier has been charged with eight criminal counts including obstruction of justice, perjury, and endangering a child, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Spanier was president of Pennsylvania State University before the Sandusky scandal blew up.

According to Pennsylvania State Attorney General Linda Kelly, Spanier's inaction was not inadvertence and oversight, but rather part of a "conspiracy of silence by top officials at Penn State."

With Google and its mantra of "do no evil," the public may have a rosy view of tech companies as being above labor disputes and employee complaints. They're getting free meals and foosball, so what can they be complaining about?

However, companies are companies and people are people. Because of that, there's bound to be problems -- the most recent being a computer technician for Unisys Corp. and Insight Enterprises who claims she was harassed by her co-workers because of her race, according to Courthouse News Service. The African American victim claims that co-workers made slave jokes, gave her shackles, and insinuated that the supervisor was her master.

These claims sound like the makings of a hostile work environment.

As we progress into the 21st century we tend to think that everything is progressing along with time. However, we are occasionally reminded that we have not yet met this ideal.

One extreme example of this is a boss in the Washington, D.C., area who has been accused of sexually harassing female employees in a very extreme manner. Three women have sued UGL Services Limited, a Portland, Maine-based staffing company, for its failure to act after receiving their complaints of sexual harassment, according to Courthouse News Service.

The women reported their supervisor, Felix Miranda, because he allegedly exposed himself and sexually assaulted the women continuously between 2010 and 2011. The most extreme accusation is that Miranda locked one of the women in a closet with him and forced her to watch his homemade pornography while he grabbed her breast and masturbated, according to Courthouse News.

With this or any type of harassment, a victim can pursue several courses of action.

Sexual harassment takes many forms, all of which are offensive in a different manner. There could be verbal harassment through the constant mention of sex or unrelenting come-ons. There could be written harassment by sending emails or writing notes and leaving sexual images at a coworker's desk. Then there is the worst, which is the physical harassment by inappropriate touching or worse.

In Elizabeth, New Jersey, Stanley Champagne is accused of choosing to take his harassment to the "worse" level of physical harassment by holding his coworker Katiria Velez by her sweatshirt and masturbating on her, according to Courthouse News Service. This event was preceded by an alleged offer by Champagne to provide $50 to Velez so that he could perform oral sex on her.

Usually it is the Internal Affairs crew that investigates wrongdoing within a police force, not causes it. They're the ones that are supposed to be investigating whether cops are embezzling funds or selling confiscated drugs on the street.

Recently, Philadelphia Police Internal Affairs Bureau Staff Inspector Jerrold Bates was accused by aide Keisha Johnson of forcing her into a sexual relationship in order to keep her job, according to the Philadelphia Daily News. The harassment allegedly started in 2008 when Bates slipped his hands under Johnson's shirt during a one on one meeting in his office.

Going to our jobs is usually painful enough for most of us. There is no need to add on problems once you're already there. Unfortunately, these things happen. What is good is that when it gets nasty, you can bring your problems to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") and have them heard.

In this case, the EEOC won in a jury trial for sexual harassment. The CEO and CFO of Endoscopic Microsurgery Associates in Baltimore had been subjecting their employees to unwanted sexual advances and eventually fired the employees for rejecting the advances, according to the EEOC. Before firing the women, the medical practice retaliated against them by rescinding approved leave and applying unwarranted discipline.

The name Country Fresh usually brings to mind delicious fresh fruit and vegetables. But the store took a little too much liberty with the word fresh to get a little too fresh with its employees, according to an EEOC Press Release.

Just to be clear, we're talking sexual harassment here. And not just one person. The EEOC filed suit after multiple reports of flagrant sexual harassment of women in the meat department by the department manager at Country Fresh's Brownsville store, according to the EEOC.

So how did the suit get to the EEOC?