Employees Who Never File Complaints about Sexual Harassment But Merely Answer Questions are Protected from Retaliation.

The United States Supreme Court ruled in Crawford v. Metropolitan Government that a local government employee who answered questions posed to her about a human resource employee’s alleged sexual harassment was protected from retaliation even when she did not file her own complaint about his behavior. The questions came during an internal investigation being conducted when another employee complained about the HR employee’s behavior. The questioned employee, although not filing a complaint herself, gave instances in which the HR employee acted in a very sexual manner toward her. Soon after the discussion, the questioned employee was fired for alleged embezzlement. Two other employees who had given similar accounts were also fired. The Supreme Court ruled that by answering the questions as she did, the questioned employee was protected from retaliation whether she had complained about the behavior herself or not and was entitled to pursue her lawsuit against the local government.