Customer isn’t always right: addressing third-party discrimination

In pursuit of customer satisfaction, employers may be inclined to take a hands-off approach when customers or other third parties exhibit discriminatory conduct towards their employees. This can be a costly mistake.

Courts have repeatedly held employers responsible for the discriminatory wrongdoing of third parties, even when the employer itself claimed to be free of bias. An employer’s obligation to take prompt, reasonable remedial action is designed to address and respond to complaints of harassment, even if the alleged harasser is not an employee of the company.

The EEOC and third-party discrimination

The danger of not addressing third party harassment is demonstrated by a recent lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for Vermont by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). On September 6, 2022, the EEOC sued 98 Starr Road Operating Co., LLC. The company is a long-term care facility in Burlington.

The EEOC claimed that patients at the facility repeatedly told African American employees to “go back to Africa,” followed them around the facility to racially berate them, and physically assaulted them because of their race. It’s alleged that management’s response to the employee complaints was that the residents of the facility could “say what they want” and that the employees should be used to being the target of racial slurs because they were “from the South.”