I work in a healthcare facility in MA and there is a co-worker of mine who has accused the asst. director of the facility of sexual harrassment. Her story is that he touched her inappropriately. Her story is inconsistent and various witnesses say that it never happened. He does have a reputation of inappropriate jokes, etc. and they have been in social situations outside of work that were casual and people just went out drinking but he never had any advances on her. This person works in my department and seems to be using this "pending" lawsuit to her advantage to do what ever she wants. For example: she has poor productivity, calls out sick, and does not take lunches to leave early. She makes the department uneasy, accuses other professionals of inappropriate behavior and in general is not easy to work with. She also has a history of being fired from 2 other jobs for various inappropriate behaviours. This being said and the lack of discretion upon hiring her, the director of my department would like to terminate her but feels she can not because of this looming sexual harrassment case. Is there any thing that can be done? Would firing her lead to this harrassment case? I personally can not work with this person because she is not a good clinician. Any advice?

I guess you could tell the asst. director you would go to court for them.

I would be very careful terminating someone who has a sexual harassment case pending. The director of your dept. might want to talk to someone in your legal dept. Hopefully, her poor performance, absences, etc. are all documented.