Third, always bear in mind that disciplinary documents are discoverable.
That means that a plaintiff attorney can subpoena your written warnings and use them against your company. Therefore, avoid stating that an employee ‘‘sexually harassed’’ a coworker. Sexual harassment, as a term of the trade, is a legal conclusion. Instead, describe the behavior so that a court can compare the documented behavior to the company’s definition of sexual harassment. Otherwise it will be a matter of determining damages owed, not whether sexual harassment took place.

Similarly, don’t state: ‘‘Your failure to follow standard operating procedure has jeopardized an entire pool of loans.’’ Should a class-action lawsuit later unfold down the road, that one disciplinary document may be used as evidence that it was an employee’s fault that a pool of loans was not sold in the secondary mortgage market.

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How should you document incidents of inappropriate conduct or substandard performance without codifying the damage done to your company? Simply use language that is less concrete and more fluid in tone. Sample language of a written warning for sexual harassment cases can be found in Appendix L.

In the case of the improperly pooled mortgage loans, youmight write: ‘‘Your failure to follow standard operating procedure may have jeopardized an entire pool of loans.’’ Again, avoid absolutes and codifying specific damage done to your company.

Taken From : The Hiring and Firing Quention and Answer Book