By: Steve M. Cohen, Ed. D.

Some OSHA Statistics:

Approximately 1,000,000 individuals per year are the victims of some form of violent crime in the workplace each year. This represents approximately 15% of all violent crimes committed annually in America.

61% of violent crime occurs in private companies, 30% in government agencies, and 8% to self-employed individuals.

Of all workplace crimes reported, over 80% were committed by males; 40% were committed by complete strangers to the victims; 35% by casual acquaintances, and 19% by individuals well known to the victims, and 1% by relatives of the victims.

Over half of the incidents (56%) were not reported to police, although 26% were reported to at least one official in the workplace.

It is estimated that workplace violence caused some 500,000 employees to miss 1,751,000 days of work annually, or an average of 3.5 days per incident. This equates to $55,000,000 in lost wages annually.

Some Society Of Human Resource Managers’ Statistics:

Regarding violent incidents in the workplace:

33% of all managers surveyed experienced at least one violent incident in the workplace. 32% of all managers noted that one or more acts had occurred since 1989. 54% of these managers reported between two and five acts of violence in the last 5 years.

Regarding the victims of the incidents of violence:

54% of the incidents were employee against employee. 13% of the incidents were employee against supervisor.7% of the incidents were customer against employees.

Regarding the effect of a violent incident on the workplace:
41% of the organizations reported increased stress levels in the workplace after a violent incident. 20% reported "higher levels of paranoia." 18% reported "increased distrust" among employees.

An employer can be held liable for relationship violence assaults, as well as criminal assaults committed by strangers, that occur at the workplace for failure to provide adequate security.

Employees and employers stand in a special relationship, and the courts have held that employers have a duty to provide employees with a safe workplace environment.

The elements necessary to prove a failure to provide adequate security claim are:

1) A sufficient number of prior criminal acts or threats or warnings of future criminal acts on the premises, which would cause a reasonable person with that knowledge to infer that the type of criminal acts plaintiff suffered would in fact occur;

2) That the defendant company actually knew, or should have known, of the prior crimes or acts;

3) That the employer had an opportunity and could reasonably have protected the plaintiff from criminal assaults, but failed to do so; and

4) That the employer’s failure to protect proximately caused the plaintiff’s injuries.

Establishing the duty to provide security is the linchpin to this claim. Duty is determined by the foreseeability of the crime. Foreseeability signals to the employer that there were a number of hazards present creating a real danger that future crimes may occur.

The employer may also be liable where it undertook security measures in a negligent fashion. Once an employer implements a security measure, it is under a duty to fulfill that undertaking with due care.

Conclusion:

An employer may be civilly liable for workplace relationship violence assaults, as well as other workplace criminal assaults. Where these assaults are foreseeable, the employer will be liable for failure to provide adequate security. Employers may also be held liable under the doctrine of Respondeat Superior and negligent hiring or negligent employment retention for assaults committed by fellow employees.

What To Do... Workplace Solutions:

Step 1) Get upper-management’s commitment. An "it’s no big deal" attitude will discourage people from addressing the matter. It also sets the employer up for a possible "failure to protect" action.

Step 2) Assess the current risks. OSHA actually requires all employers to conduct a security audit.

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