For your Review
Mr, Evans,
Per your request, I have conducted an initial review of the pending litigation against this organization brought by Mr. Robert Simmons, a former employee in the production department.
Mr. Simmons is alleging that the recent policy change requiring production staff to work alternating 4 days on/4 days off shift work is a case of constructive discharge causing him to leave this organization’s employ.
As a matter of context, I will briefly review the standards by which constructive discharge, as a legal concept, is relevant to this case.
According to Turner v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc, the State of California considers constructive discharge to be a case where “the employer either intentionally created or knowingly permitted working conditions that were so intolerable or aggravated at the time of the employee's resignation that a reasonable employer would realize that a reasonable person in the employee's position would be compelled to resign." Other jurisdictions define constructive discharge similarly and this is commonly referred to as the reasonable person test. Some courts have also adjudged that in order to determine actual constructive discharge, a second test, as in Muller v. United States Steel
Corporation, requires that the plaintiff demonstrate that the “the employer created those conditions with the specific intent to cause the employee to resign.”
The suit brought by Mr. Simmons contends that constructive discharge applies in that this organization not only created an intolerable work environment by requiring his work on what he considers a holy day, but did so knowingly for the express purpose of forcing him to resign.
We will further visit this allegation later on; however it is also necessary to momentarily discuss how
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applies. According to SEC. 2000e-2 of the act, it