Ask HN: How do I deal with the first sexual harassment complaint at my startup?

The expedient solution is to be spineless and cover your own ass. It does not produce the desired behavior at higher levels, but the Nash equilibrium is to do it quietly and kick the can down the road for the next employer to deal with. This is exactly how the Catholic church and the Boy Scouts handled its pedophiles--cover it up and delay accountability indefinitely.

If there may be a threat to sue, offer a severance package that precludes civil lawsuits.

I was once laid off, and I suspect the reason for it was that the company did not want to pay off on my as-yet-unvested options at a time when the public stock was at an all-time high. I didn't sue, because the severance package was worth more to me than the potentially years-long litigation hassle. They, in turn, never admitted to any particular reason for laying me off. If I'm going to end up screwed either way, I'd prefer the method that allows me to get it over with and get on with my life the next day.

The impetus to throw just enough money at the problem to make it disappear fuels some of the scams that prey on very large companies. This is closely related to the business model for patent trolls. If you ask for slightly less money than litigation would cost, you get quietly paid.

Edit:

Most civil cases don't go to trial, and I don't care enough about my own disposable post on the Internet to go look up legal citations as a tangentially interested non-lawyer just because some other disposable post on the Internet asked for them. My point was that corporate employers are amoral, and would prefer to handle a potentially hairy situation cheaply rather than ethically. The only points required are as follows. 1. It is possible that a recently terminated employee could sue the former employer; it even happens occasionally in real life. 2. Such a lawsuit has a nonzero cost to the employer (and also the ex-employee). 3. Therefore, the employer can theoretically save money by bribing the ex-employee with a lesser amount than in #2 to not sue. 4. This could potentially allow the ex-employee to escape the consequences of actions that may or may not have led to the termination.

The general consensus among companies is to do the easy thing, not the right thing.

Could you clarify by citing a case with this fact pattern which actually made it to trial?

* At-will employee

* No special contract terms tied to for-cause termination

* Disputed or false accusation of harassment (or, if you like, any claim of harassment whatsoever --- or, really, any "cause" whatsoever)

* Terminated, either formally for cause or for no cause

* Claim of damages stemming from the termination itself

I've attended a few sexual harassment training's over the years. There are no clear cut rules. In fact, in my first training, harassment couldn't occur until the other sex said "stop, no, etc." In the last one I attended, things aren't so clear cut, and it seems like the lawyers have made sexual harassment so unclear that the only ones who can determine it are the lawyers themselves.

It doesn't matter that it was after work, using a non-work communication medium. It still could be or maybe its not harassment.

You are going to have to talk with her and let her know that you have to act upon this. You don't know what is going to happen. At a bare minimum, something is going to his HR file. At worse, a lawsuit is going to happen.