In my humble opinion, NBC’s The Office is the world’s #1 employment law training aid. All you have to do is (1) watch it and (2) do the exact opposite of everything you see.

To help enhance your viewing experience, each week I provide a critique of the action from an employment lawyer’s perspective.

Last Night’s Episode: “Niagara.”

The Plot: Here’s NBC’s official description: “Jim and Pam take the office to the falls for a wedding to remember.”

My Analysis:

1. Issue: Pregnancy Discrimination
   Description: Multiple employees made inappropriate comments about Pam’s pregnancy and the company ignored her quite reasonable requests (e.g., for her co-workers to wear less pungent perfume and eat less odoriferous lunches). As a result, Pam upchucked, setting off a chain reaction of retching throughout the office.
   Risk: $$$
2. Issue: Theft of Company Time
   Description: The entire office has been preoccupied by the wedding for several weeks, doing almost no discernible work. That pattern continued this week as everyone talked non-stop about the upcoming nuptials and then left work early to travel to Niagara Falls.
   Risk: $$
3. Issue: Assault/Workplace Violence
   Description: Michael pinched Angela. She no doubt documented that occurrence and added it to her growing list of complaints. Dwight kicked a wedding guest in the face. Pam intentionally stomped on Andy’s hand. Kevin’s foul-smelling shoes assaulted the nasal passages of several hotel employees.
   Risk: $$
4. Issue: Invasion of Privacy
   Description: Dwight stole Pam’s guest list and compiled a dossier on each and every female invitee. Michael fully endorsed his behavior.
   Risk: $$
5. Issue: How Not to Interact with Employees Off-site
   Description: Michael graphically illustrated how not to interact with employees at an off-site event. Don’t (1) demand to share a room with employees of the opposite sex, (2) make uninvited public speeches in which you make graphic sexual comments about your subordinates, (3) encourage excessive alcohol consumption, (4) hit on your employees’ relatives and/or (4) basically anything else Michael did in this episode.
   Risk: $$$$
6. Issue: Dangerous Work-related Activities
   Description: Michael tied full beer cans to his bumper, causing them to explode. He also fell asleep behind the wheel while driving Dwight to the wedding. Although no one was hurt, Michael’s continued propensity to do dumb, dangerous things could one day blow up in the company’s face (literally).
   Risk: $$$
7. Issue: Allowing Dwight To Interact With Children (And Anyone Else)
   Description: Dwight sat at the kids’ table, drank beer in front of them and complained at length about the company’s failure to promote him. In fact, Dwight engaged in highly inappropriate acts with basically every wedding guest he encountered. My advice: fire Dwight immediately (or at least never let him go out in public again).
   Risk: $$$
8. Issue: Criminally Bad Dancing
   Description: Several employees exhibited horrific/obscene dance moves that could add to the harassment and emotional distress claims against the company.
   Risk: $$
9. Issue: Workplace Injury
   Description: Andy suffered a dancing-related injury and could potentially claim that it took place at a company-sponsored event based on management’s participation and approval of the party.
   Risk: $$
10. Issue: Emotional Distress
    Description: Andy continued to exhibit signs of deep emotional distress by openly weeping at various points in the episode with very little provocation. In addition, virtually every wedding guest has a potential emotional distress claim against the company based on the collective impact of the various bad acts of its employees.
    Risk: $$
11. Issue: Ignoring Complaints
    Description: As he does every week, Dwight attempted to file a “formal complaint.” As it does every week, the company ignored him. If Dwight ever gets fired, he will undoubtedly point to his multitude of complaints and claim retaliation (and argue that the company’s failure to invetigate evidenced bad intent).
    Risk: $$
12. Issue: Fraud
    Description: Pam and Jim accepted numerous wedding gifts from attendees who were unaware that the two had already secretly gotten married. Stanley will undoubtedly demand his toaster back.
    Risk: $
13. Issue: Various Other Inappropriate Comments/Actions
    Description: Once again, virtually every employee said or did something wildly inappropriate. The main culprits this week were Dwight (too many to count, but especially his creepy mix tape and comments made to various female wedding guests) and Michael (basically everything that came out of his mouth plus the painting of Jim and Pam in the nude). At this point, every employee could sue the company for something and win.
    Risk: $$$$$

OFFICIAL “ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A LAWYER?” CONTEST: Anyone who leaves a comment below identifying an employment law issue that I missed will win a valuable prize. If you didn’t get a chance to see the episode, you can view it on NBC’s official web site here.

As always, thanks for your participation!

This entry was posted on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 1:30 pm and is filed under Office, The. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.