Howard Rudge Lays Down the Law

Mr. Rudge has a law degree from GeorgeWashingtonLawSchool and has worked on and off most of his life with DuPont in their legal department.  Howard discussed to different lawsuits due to legal issues in the work place.  The reasoning behind these two cases it to stress the importance of a safe work environment and taking swift action when a problem does occur in the work place.

The first case was a fight between a supervisor Swingley and an employee Jones.  The Swingley was not happy with the performance of one of Jones and gave him a verbal lashing at the end of the day.  This turned into a fight and Jones hit Swingley several times in the head with a pipe wrench resulting in brain damage.  Both employees sued the company over the fight and both won.  Supervisor won due to an unsafe work environment and the employee won for back pay.  The employee also got off criminal charges due to pleading temporary insanity.

            The second case was two employees at DuPont.  One was a lab tech Albright and the other is a very predominate inventor Townsend.  The case has to do with sexual harassment in the work place.  Townsend sexually harassed the lab tech Albright a couple of times and little was done.   On a third occasion he was caught defecating on the lab techs keyboard.  After being caught he was told to go home and the legal department would review the allegations and would handle it in the future.  That night Townsend went home and killed himself.  Both the lab tech and Townsend's family sued DuPont and both won.  Townsend's family settled out of court for $2 million and Albright sued for cruel and unusually punishment and won $350,000.