WV Supreme Court rules that employer’s policy and prompt action protected it against liability; Colgan Air v. WV HRC; 10/25/07

West Virginia Capitol Building at Night Octo­ber 25, 2007: In Col­gan Air, Inc. v. West Vir­ginia Human Rights Com­mis­sion, 221 W. Va. 588, 656 S.E.2d 33 (1977) the West Vir­ginia Supreme Court addressed claims of harass­ment (based on reli­gion and nation­al ori­gin) and retal­i­a­tion under the WV Human Rights Act, W. Va. Code § 5–11‑1 et seq.

The plain­tiff was a pilot, Rao Zahid Khan, who alleged that his co-work­ers sub­ject­ed him to fre­quent deroga­to­ry and insult­ing com­ments about his nation­al ori­gin and reli­gion (he was Ara­bic). The West Vir­ginia Supreme Court ruled that Col­gan Air (a) was not liable for harass­ment because it had poli­cies and pro­ce­dures pro­hibit­ing harass­ment and took swift and deci­sive action after learn­ing about the harass­ment, and (b) was not liable for retal­i­a­tion because Col­gan Air ter­mi­nat­ed the employ­ee (Mr. Khan) for a legit­i­mate and non-dis­crim­i­na­to­ry reason–he failed to pass a manda­to­ry FAA pro­fi­cien­cy test for pilots.

Col­gan Air was a 3–2 deci­sion. Jus­tices Davis, May­nard, and Ben­jamin joined in the “per curi­am” major­i­ty opin­ion, and Jus­tice Albright dis­sent­ed and wrote an opin­ion, and Jus­tice Starcher also dis­sent­ed and wrote an opin­ion. Both Jus­tices Albright and Starcher agreed with the major­i­ty that Mr. Khan prop­er­ly lost his job because of his fail­ure to pass the FAA pro­fi­cien­cy test, but dis­sent­ed because they believed that Col­gan Air was prop­er­ly held liable for the hos­tile work envi­ron­ment (based on reli­gion and nation­al ori­gin).

Drew M. Capuder
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4 thoughts on “WV Supreme Court rules that employer’s policy and prompt action protected it against liability; Colgan Air v. WV HRC; 10/25/07”

    1. A lack of a prompt response by an employ­er in response to an alle­ga­tion of dis­crim­i­na­tion can be evi­dence of an employ­er’s lia­bil­i­ty. So these ideas to a sig­nif­i­cant extent oper­ate in both directions–a prompt and appro­pri­ate response helps pro­tect the employ­er from lia­bil­i­ty, and the fail­ure to do the same increas­es the like­li­hood of it being held liable.

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