Claims for domestic violence in the workplace may be on the rise.

Not long after 22-year-old Francesia La Rose told her boyfriend, Patrick Thomas, that she wanted to end their stormy relationship, he began a campaign of violent harassment. Thomas allegedly kidnapped La Rose, raped her, and even threatened her fife.

Late one afternoon, he called a supervisor at her office and demanded that she be fired. When the supervisor said he had no intention of firing La Rose, Thomas said he had no recourse but to come to her office to kill her.

The next day, Thomas carried out his threat. At midday, he walked into her office building, went to her fourth-floor, office, and, while her back was to him, shot and killed her.

Last December, nearly two years after the murder, La Rose's daughter and parents settled a lawsuit alleging, among other claims, that her employer, State Mutual Life Assurance Co., had failed to adequately protect her. (La Rose v. State Mutual Life Assurance Co., No. 9322684 (Tex., Harris County 214th Jud. Dist. Ct. Dec. 5, 1994).) The daughter will receive about $800,000 in a structured settlement, and La Rose's parents will receive about $50,000.

The case is one of the first lawsuits arising out of domestic violence in the workplace. (See Joseph Pereira, Employers Confront Domestic Abuse, Wall St. J., Mar. 2, 1995, at B1.) But it's not likely to be the last, according to Washington, D.C., lawyer Fredrica Lehrman, the leader of ATLA's Domestic Violence Litigation Group. Since the La Rose settlement was reported, Lehrman has "received numerous calls from attorneys who are handling similar cases."

It is unclear whether domestic violence in the workplace is a growing problem, but studies show that it is not an insignificant one. The Bureau of National Affairs has estimated that domestic violence costs companies between $3 billion and $5 billion annually in absenteeism, reduced productivity, and increased health care costs. And the U.S. Labor Department reported that employee disputes with personal acquaintances led to at least 39 workplace homicides in 1992, the last year for which statistics are available. (Lisa Genasci, Domestic Violence Spilling into the Workplace, L.A. Times, Jan. 18, 1995, at D9.)

The law in these cases also is unclear. There are no appellate cases on point, according to Lehrman. And she is not aware of any case that has been tried to a verdict.

"We don't have any hard and fast law on it yet. [Lawyers] are talking to each other about how to draft these complaints," she said.

Liability hinges on whether the employer has a duty to protect its employees from abusive partners, Lehrman said. And that duty is likely to depend on whether an employer is aware that an employee is being abused and what the employer does with that knowledge.

La Rose's employer knew a lot and didn't do enough, according to Gordon R. Cooper II, the plaintiffs' attorney in the case. Thomas had harassed La Rose at work at least once before the murder. That incident, coupled with the phoned death threat, should have convinced her supervisors that Thomas was capable of violence, Cooper said.

The company did take some action to protect La Rose. It gave a picture of Thomas to building security guards and told them to keep him off the premises. But Cooper said that wasn't enough. He said the company should have locked the door to La Rose's office suite, which rarely had visitors. The security guards "lost the picture and just didn't watch out for [Thomas]," Cooper said.

Ironically, an employer who takes action to protect its employees from abusive partners may subject itself to liability that would not exist otherwise. Lehrman likened the employer's duty to intervene to a person's duty under the Good Samaritan doctrine to render aid to an injured person.

"If you do nothing at all, the law has no reason to get involved. But if you try to help and do it badly, you may be liable," she said.

Some companies have decided not to wait for a violent incident to happen to find out what they should or should not have done. For example, Liz Claiborne Inc. and Polaroid Corp. both offer programs to educate employees about domestic abuse. And Lehrman notes that "a lot of management-consulting firms are offering courses in domestic violence in the workplace."

It is too soon to tell whether education programs like these will increase or decrease employers' liability exposure for domestic violence at work. The legal parameters are just too murky, according to Lehrman.

Whether employer intervention can actually prevent violence from occurring also remains to be seen. Cooper acknowledges that in some cases there is little an employer can do to prevent an employee from being injured by an abusive partner.