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Assaulted on the Job

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roguecommander

Guest
What is the name of your state? Georgia

I was recently assualted by the assistant manager where I work. This was the culimnation of nearly three months of a hostile work environment condition. I was constantly verbally harassed by her for various reasons, and for the most part attempted to approach the conditions through the store/company management (as attempting to deal without on my own did not work).

This past weekend I was slapped four times, beyond playfully but not to what I would consider assault, because she wanted me to move, and then forcefully shoved when I refused to move.

After the store had closed she spent over an hour using what I consider loudly yelling what I would consider racial and derrogatory statements. She is African American and I am caucasian. For a considerable amount of time I was the only caucasion employee at the store.

She began to call me stupid and as such I closed the door to the backroom as I did not want to hear her. She opened it a few minutes later and once started to say other things, I went to once again close it, however it did not touch her in any way nor was it forceful as it has a device on it that closes it evenly over several seconds. She forcefully slammed the door back, causing my elbow to strike the wall and my hand to hyper-extend. I spent three hours at the Emergency Room, however my arm/wrist is not broken, it is sprained and bruised. I am in a great deal of pain however and am unable to work as the duties include a great deal of lifting and moving items (I am also left-handed and my left wrist is the one injured).

I have filed assault charges and under the advice of the police officer filed for a warrent. What else should I do? Should I contact a lawyer. I have spoken with the District Manager and given him a statement, but I do not know if I should continue to approach it in that manner.

Thank you.
 


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roguecommander

Guest
I am not certain if she has been arrested. The incident occured yesterday afternoon and I did not file the warrent until around 1:30 pm today. The magistrate judge set a preliminary hearing for August 16th.

I have not returned to work and will not be allowed to until the situation is resolved according to the district manager.
 
Is your company putting you on a paid-leave status ? I suspect you will not be returning to work until at least after the date of the hearing. In any case, try to get the proper forms from HR to file for Workers Comp right away.

As for any disciplinary action within your company, you have to let HR do their investigation.

In the meantime, you may want to write a report on the discrimination and harrassment that took place at your work, and mail it to HR so you have in on their record - your side of the story.

Do all of this quickly - don't wait until you get terminated - because you will loose all your leverage at that point.
 
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roguecommander

Guest
I am not being compensated for my leave as I am only part-time. I have been advised to hire a lawyer to handle the case, I just was not sure if that was necessary.
 

gryndor

Member
General Question:

roguecommander said:
This was the culimnation of nearly three months of a hostile work environment condition. I was constantly verbally harassed by her for various reasons, and for the most part attempted to approach the conditions through the store/company management (as attempting to deal without on my own did not work).
To OP: Had you been dealing with upper management about her unwarranted behavior?

To everyone else: Would a pattern of "abuse" that had gone on for three months without being rectified make the company in some way liable?

Thanks,
Gryn
 

cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
Gryndor: It would depend entirely upon what the "abuse" was. What a great many people believe to be illegal abuse, isn't.
 

gryndor

Member
cbg said:
Gryndor: It would depend entirely upon what the "abuse" was. What a great many people believe to be illegal abuse, isn't.
Yes, certainly reading a few posts here would prove that, but does this particular set of events qualify?
 

rmet4nzkx

Senior Member
Your employer has to carry worker's compensation, even if you are part time, you should have reported it as work related to hospital and your employer should be handling this as a worker's comp case, they are responsible for maintaining a safe environment. Be careful because they may claim that you provoked the incident while you were avoiding it and had to say what witnesses will say. You documented your injuries and made a police report etc, you are also eligible to apply for crime victim compensation. Do this today,
CJCC - Victim Compensation & Services Georgia Crime Victims Compensation Program. ... Georgia Crime Victims Compensation Program
503 Oak Place, Suite 540 Atlanta, Georgia 30349.

Criminal Justice Coordinating Council
Directory Corrections
503 Oak Place, Suite 540
(404) 559-4949
(4040) 559-4960 fax
[email protected]


http://www.state.ga.us/cjcc/victimscomp.html
Contact a worker's compensation attorney and they can help with any other referrals.
Since your left handed, writting statements at this time may be a problem so ask someone to help you, be sure they confirm that they filled wrote for you since you couldn't write.
 
R

roguecommander

Guest
cbg said:
Gryndor: It would depend entirely upon what the "abuse" was. What a great many people believe to be illegal abuse, isn't.
It is not what I would consider "illegal", however it did eventually escalate to a condition I was uncomfortable with, more specifically when it was racially motivated.
 
R

roguecommander

Guest
gryndor said:
To OP: Had you been dealing with upper management about her unwarranted behavior?...

Thanks,
Gryn
Yes, I had brought the issue before the store manager on several occasions, and the answer was always "it will be rectified soon" or it was merely swept under the rug.
 

cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
There is not enough information in the post for me to form an opinion as to whether this set of events qualifies. Being called stupid is NOT sufficient, however, since there is a question of racial bias, I'd want considerably more to go on.
 

gryndor

Member
Well, yeah. I agree being called stupid doesn't qualify, but I was talking more about verbal harassment (if you could call it that), general hostile environment, etc... If you brought that up with higher management, and they decided to sit on their butts until she starts slamming this guy into walls, would they hold some of the responsibility?

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but that's how I read the OP's post...

Thanks
 

cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
My answer remains the same; there is not enough information in the post to determine the liability of the company.

A "hostile work environment" has a specific legal definition. While the possibility exists, we do not have enough information to determine if an HWE actually exists.

"Verbal harassment" also is only illegal in some instances. The reference to racial epithets makes it possible that this is the case, but once more we do NOT know enough to say for certain.

If there was no HWE in the legal sense, and if the "verbal harassment" did not reach illegal proportions, then the liability to the company is slim to none.

IF there was a legal HWE, then the possibility of legal liability for the company increases, but the level of liability would depend on information we do not have.
 
R

roguecommander

Guest
I do not recall all that she has said, as it has been over the course of three months.

On Sunday I was told I was "stupid" I was called "white boy" or "skinny white boy" on several instances.

As I said, those alone were not what I would consider illegal behaviour, however I felt that they gave my report more resonance after she did slam my arm into the wall. I had originally not included them in the police report, nor had I included the earlier slapping or shove, however the officer adviced me to include all of this information.

As far as earlier events, it was more of an issue of her constantly maintaining a disposition that made me feel like I was doing something wrong. Once again let me state that I was handling this with the store management, and I did not think that it would end in violence or assault, however due to the conditions I was in the process of finding other work and had desired such due to the position of the management that there was nothing they would do.
 

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