Chrysler Puts Limit on Sex Harassment Claims

Chrysler LLC has been at the forefront of imposing time limits on employees for filing legal claims regarding discrimination and harassment that are much shorter than deadlines set by state and federal law, lawyers said.

It’s something the courts have upheld, but one judge has called “unconscionable.”

To apply for work at Chrysler, applicants must waive the time allowed under the law _ 300 days to file with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and 3 years in a Michigan court _ for bringing a legal claim against the automaker. They must agree to file any claim within 6 months of an alleged offense.

“We’re not the only large company that does this,” said Mike Palese, a Chrysler spokesman. “As a business, from a legal point of view, we felt this really protected the interests of the company and protected the interests of the employees. It was a fair balance. The courts have recognized it, and we’ll continue with it.”

Representatives for Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. said that neither automaker uses the provision.

The 6-month limit has become an issue for some women filing discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuits against Chrysler over conditions at its Toledo North Assembly Plant.

For example, Chrysler worker Mee Sanders has two lawsuits filed in federal court, one against Chrysler and one against UAW Local 12, alleging harassment and discrimination at the Toledo plant.

Sanders alleges that a union official named Richard Lott began harassing her after she rebuked his advances. She claims in court records that he forced himself on her and worked to get her thrown out of the workplace when she refused him.

Lott’s lawyer declined to comment for this report, and Lott did not respond to an interview request.

A federal judge allowed evidence of discrimination in the lawsuit against UAW Local 12 and ruled against the union for discrimination and breach of its duty of fair representation. But the same judge threw out some of Sanders’ claims against the company, in part because of the 6-month limit.

In the judge’s ruling against the union, he noted that Lott received help from Chrysler supervisors and union officials “who threatened, manipulated job placements and displayed a reluctance to help.”

“Under Ohio law, there is a 6-year statute of limitations,” Sanders’ lawyer Denise Knecht said. “We know that women have faced a hostile environment at that plant for many years. A 6-year statute of limitations would’ve allowed Mee and any other women who had a claim seek remedy as far back as six years.”

But Sanders and others signed a job application with the 6-month limit.

Chrysler has used the provision since at least 1995, according to the company, having defended it up to the Michigan Supreme Court, which declined an opportunity to review the clause’s legality. Chrysler also uses the provision in other jurisdictions, including Ohio and in federal courts.

“There have been a number of cases where Chrysler has raised that defense, and in a number of cases, they’ve been successful,” said Kingsley Browne, a law professor at Wayne State University. “It’s not just Chrysler … but they seem to have been pretty active in the litigation of the issue.”

The Michigan Court of Appeals in 2005 allowed Chrysler to use the 6-month limitation in a case regarding age discrimination. The court noted that the limitation was allowed under Michigan law.

Judge Janet Neff dissented. “I would hold that the contract provision is unconscionable and violates public policy and is, therefore, unenforceable under the circumstances of this case,” Neff wrote.

Neff noted that a job applicant would have little choice but to sign the application, which included the statement waiving the statute of limitation right.

“It is unlikely that an applicant seeking a job from an employer would engage in bargaining these terms at the time of signing the application form,” and objecting would likely mean no job offer, she said.

The majority found that no state laws prohibit such contractual modifications and that the 6-month period was neither “inherently unreasonable” nor “so extreme that it shocks the conscience.” Forbidding the practice would be up to the Legislature, not the courts, Judges Michael Smolenski and Michael Talbot wrote.

Beth Rivers, a lawyer who represented the worker in the 2005 case, called the 6-month limitation “very unfair to employees.”

“From an employer’s perspective, if you can avoid an employee suing you, you want to avoid it,” Rivers said. “That’s one way to do it.”

She said the effect has been chilling. “We haven’t found a way to challenge it,” she said, “s o if somebody’s got one, we walk away from the case.”

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission handles sexual harassment complaints at the federal level, but under privacy laws, is not allowed to comment on whether claims have been filed against a company, according to Gail Cober, the Detroit office’s field director.

Speaking in general, Cober said her office views a company’s use of a statute of limitations waiver as a violation.

“It’s very, very damaging to people because people don’t know their rights, and people end up being precluded from following up on things, and you can’t let that happen,” she said.

She said that when her office encounters companies using the waiver, “it’s our policy here to go ahead and issue what’s known as a per se violation. … If a person files a claim, and we find out that they have an employment application that has … that on it, we’ll first contact the company and say, ‘You really have to change this.’”

If the company refuses to change, Cober said, “then we issue a violation … and we’re very successful at getting lots of companies to change that.”

Palese, the Chrysler spokesman, said the statute waiver does not eliminate Chrysler’s need to take claims of harassment seriously.

“We still investigate every allegation of harassment fully and completely. It’s not like this gives us some ability to say, ‘Well, OK, we can’t get in trouble anymore.’ We take this very, very, very seriously.”

He stressed several times that courts around the country have upheld the measure. “Obviously, the court does not look at it as an abridgment of an employee’s right to sue,” Palese said.

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