A mother was forced to remove her deceased daughters photo and ballet slippers from her work space by her boss at Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical, her employer of 12 years. He stated that it was disturbing and uncomfortable for her fellow employees, she was told to act as though her daughter did not ever exist. She was still in shock and left work that day and did not return, she had heart problems in the next several days after the incident, which led to her having to have heart surgery. She blames the surgery and emotional distress from the incident on her employer. She sued them, and lost, but did she really need to go through all that? It is really hard to prove extreme emotional distress inflicted by your work place, says legal experts.
Upon first reading this article I was somewhat outraged that an employer could be that heartless and crass, but on further reading I kind of understand what the intentions of them were. I can see where the pictures and things would make other employees uncomfortable, I think that by asking her to forget the child ever existed he went a little too far. However he was probably just trying to bring home that it needed to be done for the sake of the workplace moral. It is important to be clear that I do agree with her being upset but not as far as the legal path that she took. It would still be he said she said, an legal battle is hard to win based on hurt feelings.
I think that the employer did not have the right to ask the employee to remove her pictures. If you allow your employee's to have pictures of family members, they should not have to be living family members. I do however understand the request to remove the personnel item.
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