Although the employee can bring a claim for negligence, that doesn’t mean that the employee will win the claim, or recover anything. More likely than not, given the case law in most states, the employer would be granted summary judgment, which means essentially that the employee’s claim would be dismissed.

Employees have had very little success winning cases brought on a bullying theory, unless they can show that the harassment/bullying was linked to the employee’s protected class such as sex, national origin, sexual orientation (in some states), religion, etc. Then it is a claim of discrimination. The United States does not recognize dignity-based harassment, like European countries do, and instead recognized protected class-based harassment. I am not saying that it is good or bad, just what the law presently is. If the law continues in the direction that it has followed, there will be little economic reality that will cause employers to deal with workplace bullying since they will not have the verdicts or large settlements such as those that caused them to deal with other workplace issues like sexual harassment or discrimination.

Maxwell Pinto, Business Author
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/MaxPinto

As for this particular article, the writer (owner) seems to accuse his employees of performing poorly, but seems to completely deflect his own blame. Just as it is important to carefully review the performance of employees, the small business owner must also do his or her best to be objectively critical of his or her performance.

Thank you so much for sharing this. I am glad we were able to work things out amicably. I am also glad that thanks to this experience we have built a great relationship. Let’s plan that Italian coffee soon!