Arresting Employees Can Be Trouble

Opening the door to police who are seeking an employee accused of a crime outside the office sometimes allows in not only law and order, but trouble as well.

Two authorities on workplace law say that permitting the police to enter may not always be the wisest course of action because if there is a false arrest or an injury, the employer could be held liable.

For instance, if the police enter and make a false arrest with the employer’s participation, or with the aid of a company security guard, “the employer could be implicated in a false-arrest situation,” say attorneys Thomas Greble and Lee Boyd, of the New York law firm of Roberts & Finger.

Company officials should contact legal counsel before giving police the green light to enter, the attorneys add. However, if police have a valid search warrant, an employer is required to cooperate.

Greble and Boyd were asked to comment on an actual arrest case that turned sour when a worker wanted for non-payment of child support happened to have a black belt in karate. In the arrest, he mauled police officers and security guards.

The employee broke one arresting officer’s leg with a karate kick and threw the company’s security chief through a door, all in front of shocked co-workers.

The case, cited in the book “Sex, Laws & Stereotypes” by N. Elizabeth Fried, (Intermediaries Press, Dublin, Ohio) suggests the need for company discretion in workplace arrests.

Instead of exposing co-workers to potential harm, it would have been wiser in this case to suggest to police that they serve their warrant “away from work,” the expert panel concluded.