Seriously, WTF?!
Wow, just wow.
Way to go Iowa.
Nice freudian slip in the title. 
There’s a GD thread to debate this. Not sure why a guy can’t fire someone for anything he wants, as long as that someone isn’t a legally protected class or some other protection the constitution offers. Hot chicks aren’t one, AFAIK.
That seems like an overreaction; couldn’t he just have insisted that she wear a head-to-toe burka?
One article I read (I’ll admit, I was looking for a picture of her) said that the decision “was in line” with most other states’ rulings in the past.
I hope (perhaps naively) that there’s a lot of this case some stories aren’t reporting. At least in one story I read, it was clear she flirted with him, too. The Lamborghini comment, in particular, was responding to her bringing up her sex life.
Once again, I find myself looking for the ‘like’ button.
Man employs woman.
Man’s wife decides she’s pissed about it.
Man fires woman because his wife basically forces him to do so.
Not exactly the epitome of niceness or even reasonableness, but you think that’s illegal…? I agree with the general bad vibe around this, but I don’t see how the court could rule otherwise.
So I can be fired from a job I’ve done well for 10 years because my boss decides he’d like to have sex with me?
Pretty screwed up, if you ask me. My boss’s fights with his wife are his problem, not mine.
If he actually tried to have sex with her, she’d have a harassment case against him. Otherwise, as noted in the GD thread, there are only 7 states that are not “at will” employment, and Iowa isn’t one of them. You don’t need cause to fire someone, although you can’t discriminate against a protected class… Frankly, I don’t see that it should be otherwise.
Iowa is a right to work state. You can be fired because your overly earth-toned wardrobe is displeasing to the boss’s sense of personal feng shui.
That’s wrong, and so is firing someone because you are too attracted to them. By the way, how do they figure that’s right-to-work? It sounds more like it’s right-to-fire.
Please see the GD thread. This has nothing to do with “right to work”.
It’s a republican thing. They call it “right to work” because it would not sell as well if they called it “right to fire.” It is a law used to bust unions by permitting people to be employed in a union shop without having to join the union or pay dues.
Correction: It’s an at-will employment state, which means her boss could fire her because a black cat crossed his path this morning. Likewise, she could quit because it’s Tuesday, and in neither case is there anything actionable involved. To me, it just speaks to the stupidity of the state that this guy even brought it up. You don’t want her in the office? Just fire her and hire somebody else, but keep yer damn mouth shut as to the reasons.
Yep. It was really stupid of him to make this public in any way. Maybe he was just a gutless man who thought it would be easier to fire her if he could blame it on his wife.
And if it had gone the other way; “Wait a minute. My husband can hire some bimbo with big tits just to stare down her dress all day and I can’t make him fire her or she can SUE over it??? How fucked up is that?”
Not really seeing the problem with this decision.
When the hairbrained option of firing someone for raising your horny-toad is on the table, you must realize that there are equally crazy but ultimately worse for you options floating around that guy’s head.
Be fired, and be glad you’re away from him. A dentist’s office is too small of a job to put any distance between yourself and the crazy.
In an Employment At Will system I could just say “I’m sorry Miss Higgenlooper, but I’m going to have to let you go by the end of the month,” period, no explanation owed. Maybe provide a sweetened severance package and glowing recommendations if I really want the employee to not go away mad, just go away quickly (oh, wait, the wife would probably be peeved at that, too…).
BUT we humans want to know WHY things happen to us, so the fired employee may then sue just so that in discovery s/he can find out what was the “real” reason for the firing (and THEN sue for wrongful termination if it’s one of the unlawful reasons). In this case it turns out it’s not one of those.
I can’t help but thinking, though, that “I’m sorry, Miss Higgenlooper, but my wife for some reason just hates your guts and is constantly on my case about it; I’ll have to let you go by the end of the month for the sake of peace at home” would be enough to cover the employer. The wife could just say in her deposition “She just rubs me the wrong way, and I don’t care what’s her side of it” and there’s no power that could compel her to justify the animosity with facts.
Exactly.
This sounds like the correct decision under Iowa law.
I wonder, though, if this doesn’t create a federal cause of action under Title VII?
That would violate OSHA rules.