In what may be the first workplace bullying case of its kind, the Indiana Supreme Court has upheld a verdict of $325,000 against a bully of a doctor.  The suit was filed against the doctor by a hospital operating room perfusionist (the person who operates the heart/lung machine during open heart surgeries).

The doctor, angry at the perfusionist for his complaints to the hospital administration about the doctor’s treatment of other perfusionists, “aggressively and rapidly advanced on the [perfusionist] with clenched fists, piercing eyes, beet-red face, popping veins, and screaming and swearing at him.”  The perfusionist backed up against a wall and put his hands up, believing the doctor was “going to smack the sh** out of me or do something.”  The doctor suddenly turned and stormed past the perfusionist, momentarily stopping to say, “You’re finished, you’re history.”

The perfusionist sued the doctor for, among other things, assault.  In Indiana as in most states, an assault is committed when “one acts intending to cause an imminent apprehension of a harmful or offensive contact with another person.”  No physical contact has to occur, as long as a person is reasonably afraid that the contact will occur.  The jury found that the doctor was guilty of an assault and awarded $325,000 in damages. 

In upholding the jury’s verdict, the Indiana Supreme Court said it was permissible to allow an expert witness to testify that, in his opinion, what the doctor had done amounted to an “episode of workplace bullying.”  So, it seems we now have a case that says workplace bullying can be an assault.

Several state legislatures are considering bills that would make workplace bullying unlawful.  (Click here, here and here for more.)  The problem with such legislation is defining workplace.  The definition would necessarily be somewhat vague and would conceivably open the floodgates to all kinds of bullying litigation.  The Indiana case shows we don’t need this legislation.  If a supervisor does something like the doctor did in this case, he/she (and his/her employer) can be sued for assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, outrageous conduct, and other “causes of action,” depending on the law of state where the conduct occurs. 

Workplace bullying is inappropriate.  It shouldn’t happen.  For those who argue that it should be illegal, it already is, as the Indiana Supreme Court demonstrates.