New Jersey employers are highly encouraged to adopt well-defined anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies if they want to protect themselves from discrimination and harassment claims. A New Jersey Supreme Court has recently decided in Dunkley v. S. Coraluzzo Petroleum Transporters that employers may assert an affirmative defense if they maintained an anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policy, and took the appropriate measure(s) to remediate discriminatory conducts. In the Dunkley v. S. Coraluzzo Petroleum Transporters, the plaintiff Brain Dunkley stated that his trainer made race-related comments toward him, an African-American. Dunkley stopped going to work after these comments were made until he met with management and explained what had occurred. Management assigned him a new trainer. Although Dunkley no longer experienced racially discriminatory treatment from another employee in the company, he filed a complaint against his employer for failing to take proper steps to address discriminatory conduct. He further stated that Coraluzzo’s anti-harassment policy lacked structure and did not train their employees properly.
The court found that Coraluzzo did “exercise reasonable care to prevent and correct harassing conduct by the prompt enforcement of its anti-discrimination policy,” as established by the Aguas v. State of New Jersey case in 2015. The employer was found to have effective anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies to prevent these types of conducts in the workplace. The court further found that Coraluzzo took reasonable steps to correct the harassing conduct that Dunkley had experienced. Thus, to avoid future liability claims, employers should make sure to establish effective anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies. They must also train employees on how to implement these policies to create a workplace free from discrimination and harassment.