Last night’s five episode marathon of The Office was an HR executive’s nightmare!  Below, I’ve blogged about the litigation value of each of the five episodes separately — four of which are entirely new entries as the episodes were from previous seasons.  While they aired as individual episodes, if these incidents were to occur in [...]

Litigation Value $450,000 
Overall, I’d say that Oscar has a good (read expensive) claim for sexual orientation discrimination and retaliation. Not only does Michael admittedly refer to employees as “faggy” when he means “lame,” but he specifically refers to Oscar, a gay employee, as “faggy.” Then, after Toby confidentially tells Michael that Oscar is gay, it [...]

Litigation Value $ 30,000 (or if Dwight’s injuries are permanent, then $500,000)
I don’t know whether a concussion suffered when rushing off to “save” your boss after he burns his foot on a George Foreman grill would be considered a workers’ compensation injury, but if it is, Dunder Mifflin (or, more accurately, their insurance carrier) is [...]

LITIGATION VALUE: Over $700,000
It would be pretty safe to say that any time a company’s regional manager asks a female employee to act out a lesbian love scene during its anti-harassment training you have problems. Expensive problems. Not only does the company face liability for Michael’s actions in contributing to the hostile working environment but [...]

Litigation Value:  $500,000
If I were Kevin, I would start daydreaming about how to spend the windfall I will receive from the litigation lottery.  Off the cuff, I’d guess that he has a great claim for damages after being forced to publicly disclose that he has anal fissures -  especially if Dunder Mifflin later takes some [...]

LITIGATION VALUE:  $800,000

If I represented Kelly, I think my opening statement would say something like this:  

LITIGATION VALUE: The jury is still out . . .
NBC will not be airing an episode tonight but be sure to check back next week when NBC will show five episodes containing the most egregious workplace violations imaginable. Toby, our own HR Hero, will be hosting the fun-filled evening.

LITIGATION VALUE: STILL 300,000+ (for the time being. . . )
I don’t think that the “newpeats” introduced any new story lines that would significantly increase the litigation value for these episodes – for the time being. It would, after all, be harder to make things much worse. Having a regional [...]

I’m excited for this Thursday’s “newpeat.”  NBC will show two previously aired episodes (”Traveling Salesman” and “Oscar’s Return“) combined with new, never-before-seen moments.  One can only assume these never aired moments will include the antics we have come to expect from the Dunder Mifflin gang!  Stay tuned for my analysis on Friday.

LITIGATION VALUE: Two weeks pay.
Michael’s theory that a merger is like a marriage is an interesting one. He just seems to have forgotten that more than half of all marriages end in divorce. This week’s “divorce” was with Anthony Gardner, the employee Michael drove away with his crazy antics. Indeed, if [...]