Category Archives: Sex Discrimination

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sex Discrimination, US Supreme Court

Farewell, Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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Courage.

While still a prac­tic­ing lawyer, Ruth Bad­er Gins­burg in 1973 argued to 9 men on the Unit­ed States Supreme Court in a his­tor­i­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant case, Fron­tiero v. Richard­son, 411 U.S. 677 (1973).

Gins­burg asked the Supreme Court to rec­og­nize for the first time that the guar­an­tee of “equal pro­tec­tion of the laws” con­tained in the Fifth Amend­ment (rat­i­fied in 1791) pro­tect­ed women and men from dis­crim­i­na­tion based on sex. 

In talk­ing to the 9 men on the Supreme Court, Gins­burg stat­ed: I “urge[] a posi­tion forcibly stat­ed in 1837 by Sara Grimke, not­ed abo­li­tion­ist and advo­cate of equal rights for men and women. She spoke not ele­gant­ly, but with unmis­tak­able clar­i­ty. She said, ‘I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.’ ” 

The Supreme Court ruled near­ly unan­i­mous­ly in her favor (8–1).

Farewell, Ruth Bad­er Ginsburg.

“And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

(Shake­speare, Hamlet.)
Hostile work environment, Prompt remedial action, Result for Employee, Sex Discrimination, Sexual harassment, Summary Judgment, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Single act may create hostile work environment, according to Seventh Circuit in Berry v. Chicago Transit Authority

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A few days ago, I post­ed my arti­cle on PAR Elec­tri­cal Con­trac­tors, Inc. v. Bev­elle , in which the West Vir­ginia Supreme Court ruled that a sin­gle episode involv­ing mul­ti­ple uses of the N‑word could cre­ate a racial­ly hos­tile work envi­ron­ment.

The US Court of Appeals for the Sev­enth Cir­cuit just released an opin­ion in Berry v. Chica­go Tran­sit Author­i­ty, 618 F.3d 688 (7th Cir. 2010), which rais­es the sim­i­lar issue: Can a sin­gle instance of sex­u­al harass­ment cre­ate a hos­tile work envi­ron­ment? And the answer was yes, depend­ing on the circumstances.

Ms. Berry is Sexually Harassed in a Single Incident

Cyn­thia Berry was an employ­ee at the Chica­go Tran­sit Author­i­ty. She was on her break and sat at a pic­nic style table with three male co-work­ers. A fourth male co-work­er, Philip Carmichael, had fol­lowed her to the pic­nic area and ordered Ms. Berry to get up from the table. Offend­ed by Mr. Carmichael’s “com­mand­ing tone”, Ms. Berry remained seat­ed. Mr. Carmichael then sat down and “strad­dled the bench” so he was fac­ing one of the male co-work­ers at the pic­nic table, and so that Mr. Carmichael’s back was close to Ms. Berry. The oth­er three male co-work­ers got up from where they were seat­ed at the pic­nic table and moved to the oth­er end of the table. Then:

Berry says Carmichael remained where he was seat­ed and began rub­bing his back against her shoul­der. She jumped up, told him not to rub him­self against her, and sat down next to Hardy at the oth­er end of the table. At this point,
Berry says, Mar­shall began telling her to get up from the table again. Not want­i­ng Mar­shall to think he could order her around, she remained seat­ed, but began rub­bing her tem­ples to com­pose her­self. Accord­ing to Berry, she next felt Carmichael grab­bing her breasts and lift­ing her up from the bench. Hold­ing her in the air, he rubbed her but­tocks against the front of his body—from his chest to his penis—three times before bring­ing her to the ground with force. Berry land­ed off-bal­ance, with only one leg on the ground, and says Carmichael then pushed her into a fence. Upset and want­i­ng to avoid any men, she lay down in a bus for the rest of her shift.

Con­tin­ue read­ing Sin­gle act may cre­ate hos­tile work envi­ron­ment, accord­ing to Sev­enth Cir­cuit in Berry v. Chica­go Tran­sit Author­i­ty →
Harless wrongful discharge, Hostile work environment, Intentional infliction of emotional distress, Medical Industry Litigation, Pleading requirements, Result for Employee, Retaliation claims, Sex Discrimination, Sexual harassment, WV Human Rights Act, WV Supreme Court

Sorry boss, I didn’t know you were having sex in the office!!

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The West Vir­ginia Supreme Court recent­ly issued an opin­ion deal­ing with one of those stereo­typ­i­cal­ly awk­ward sit­u­a­tions, where an employ­ee alleged­ly stum­bles into a room where the boss is hav­ing sex with a co-work­er. The deci­sion was  Roth v. DeFe­lice­Care, Inc., 226 W. Va. 214, 700 S.E.2d 183 (June 8, 2010) (per curi­am). It was a 3–2 deci­sion, in which the 3‑vote major­i­ty con­sist­ed of Jus­tices Robin Davis, Mar­garet Work­man, and  Thomas McHugh. Jus­tices Menis Ketchum and Brent Ben­jamin dis­sent­ed, and Jus­tice Ketchum wrote a dis­sent­ing opinion.

The Facts–Sex at Work

These are the facts accord­ing to the com­plaint in the law­suit: Tri­cia Roth was a res­pi­ra­to­ry ther­a­pist work­ing at DeFe­lice­Care, Inc. in Ohio Coun­ty, West Vir­ginia, and she was about to go on vaca­tion. She was direct­ed by Leslie DeFe­lice (the male boss/owner) to come to work some­time dur­ing the week­end pre­ced­ing her vaca­tion in June 2006. She was not told a spe­cif­ic time to come to work dur­ing that week­end. When she came to work as ordered, she “observed Defen­dant [Leslie] DeFe­lice and/or Michelle Kel­ly par­tial­ly clothed and in a com­pro­mis­ing posi­tion”. Mr. DeFe­lice instruct­ed Ms. Roth to go into a con­fer­ence room and wait–meanwhile Mr. DeFe­lice and the oth­er employ­ee got all their clothes back on. Mr. DeFe­lice then talked to Ms. Roth and told her to for­get about what she had just seen, and threat­ened Ms. Ross with the loss of her res­pi­ra­to­ry ther­a­py license and the loss of her employment.

Ms. Roth then went on vaca­tion. When she got back from vaca­tion and returned to work, she had a meet­ing with Mr. DeFe­lice that did­n’t go well. Ms. Roth told Mr. DeFe­lice that she had­n’t told any­one about his sex­u­al encounter at work. Mr. DeFe­lice pro­ceed­ed to fire Ms. Roth because “he did not like how she was dressed” and “he did not like the style[/]color of her hair”.

Ms. Roth Files Suit–Case Dismissed

Ms. Roth then filed suit on legal the­o­ries cen­ter­ing around sex dis­crim­i­na­tion and sex­u­al harass­ment, and–bada bing!–the case prompt­ly got dismissed.

Ms. Roth’s com­plaint (the doc­u­ment which starts the law­suit and describes the plain­tiff’s alle­ga­tions) focused on the sex­u­al inci­dent I have described above, but also made alle­ga­tions about oth­er sex­u­al harassment–I will dis­cuss those details below.

Con­tin­ue read­ing Sor­ry boss, I didn’t know you were hav­ing sex in the office!! →
Disparate Impact, Equal Pay, Limitations periods, Result for Employer, Sex Discrimination, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, US Legislation, US Supreme Court

US Supreme Court rules pay claims must be filed shortly after discriminatory decision; Ledbetter v Goodyear, 5/29/07

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May 29, 2007: In Led­bet­ter v. Goodyear Tire & Rub­ber Com­pa­ny, 550 U.S. 618, 128 S. Ct. 2162 (2007) (Find­Law site opin­ion), the Unit­ed States Supreme Court, in a 5–4 deci­sion, issued an impor­tant deci­sion in a sex dis­crim­i­na­tion case under Title VII of the Civ­il Rights Act of 1964, which sub­stan­tial­ly lim­it­ed the time peri­od avail­able to assert a claim for pay dis­crim­i­na­tion. The Supreme Court affirmed the deci­sion of the Eleventh Cir­cuit in Led­bet­ter v. Goodyear Tire and Rub­ber Com­pa­ny, Inc., 421 F.3d 1169 (11th Cir. 2005).

Ledbetter’s Claims of Sex Discrimination and Lower Pay, and the Trial Result

LillyLedbetter Led­bet­ter filed a charge of sex dis­crim­i­na­tion with the EEOC in 1998 and then lat­er in the year retired. She claimed that, years ear­li­er in her career at Goodyear, male super­vi­sors gave her bad per­for­mance reviews com­pared to what men received. She claimed that Goodyear award­ed rais­es based on those per­for­mance reviews, so that her pay rais­es were reduced as a result of the dis­crim­i­na­to­ry per­for­mance reviews.

Led­bet­ter went to tri­al and per­suad­ed the jury that the per­for­mance reviews, years before she filed her EEOC charge, were dis­crim­i­na­to­ry based on her sex, and the jury found her rights had been vio­lat­ed and award­ed her dam­ages based on her low­er pay­checks through­out her career. The tri­al judge entered a “judg­ment” in Led­bet­ter’s favor based on the jury’s ver­dict. So Led­bet­ter won at tri­al on her sex dis­crim­i­na­tion claim under Title VII. The Eleventh Cir­cuit Court of Appeals threw out the jury ver­dict and tri­al court judg­ment for Led­bet­ter, and entered a judg­ment in favor of Goodyear, based on her fail­ure to file her EEOC charge with­in 180 days of when the per­for­mance reviews had been con­duct­ed. The Unit­ed States Supreme Court affirmed, mean­ing that Goodyear won.

Con­tin­ue read­ing US Supreme Court rules pay claims must be filed short­ly after dis­crim­i­na­to­ry deci­sion; Led­bet­ter v Goodyear, 5/29/07 →