QUESTION
How far into the company''s org chart will the doctrine of unclean hands go?
Asked on Sep 29th, 2011 on Business Law - New York
More details to this question:
If an employee at a company, not on the management team, is the person being identified as not having clean hands - will that hold up in court. For example, the employee is being terminated for making inapropriate comments at work yet the employee is claiming that a human resource representative (not a member of management) was overheard making comments thare are viewed as not approriate. Will that be enough for the entire company to considered as not having clean hands?
2 ANSWERS
1 Award
The doctrine of unclean hands is a defense that a plaintiff is so involved in bad conduct relating to the claim that the plaintiff should not recover. It is a litigation issue. As an equitable defense, a court can apply it any way it wants. However, your post has neither a claim or a lawsuit mentioned. Therefore, it makes no sense.
Answered on Oct 01st, 2011 at 10:22 AM
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The doctrine of unclean hands is intensely fact-dependent. It is a defense, not an offense. Whether it is an effective defense depends on whether the misconduct of the plaintiff is "bad" enough and, in cases like this, whether it can be attributed to the entire organization. It is really not possible to determine from the facts you have posted whether or not such a defense has a likelihood of success.
There are many circumstances in legal settings where the misconduct of even a very low-level employee is attributed to employer. And others where that is not the case.
Answered on Sep 29th, 2011 at 4:39 PM