Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: Law & Practice, 5th Edition (1-year Online Subscription)

The law of sexual harassment is constantly evolving, and the number of sexual harassment claims is dramatically on the rise. Sexual Harassment in the Workplace, Fifth Edition, is a comprehensive guide that provides all the information you need to successfully litigate a sexual harassment claim.

Sexual Harassment in the Workplace guides you through the relevant administrative and legal proceedings, from client interviews to attorney's fees. It discusses state and federal remedies available to maximize recovery, including:

• The development and elements of the claim
• Sample pleadings
• Discovery documents
• Reviews of actual cases

Special attention is given to important topics such as:

• Suits by alleged harassers
• Insurance indemnification
• Class actions
• And many others

Sexual Harassment in the Workplace brings you up to date on the latest case law developments, including the following:

• A Navy specification sufficiently stated elements of the offense of abusive sexual contact in a special court-martial. A specification is sufficient so long as the elements may be found by reasonable construction of other language in the challenged specification. [United States v. Shields]

• Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) recently reintroduced her bill to address military sexual assault. The Military Justice Improvement Act would take the decision to prosecute sexual assault cases away from military commanders and give it to independent military prosecutors. [ §1.01]

• When a plaintiff stated in her deposition that she recalled seven specific instances where the alleged harasser uttered remarks of a sexual nature, yet she could vaguely remember 10–20 more instances that occurred over the course of a year and a half, despite her assertion that the alleged harasser uttered these types of remarks on a daily basis, the court found that this fell far below the harassing conduct that this circuit finds sufficient to constitute pervasive harassment. [Williams v. United Launch Alliance, LLC]

• In a Title VII sex discrimination and retaliation action, a plaintiff's factual allegations did not adequately plead there were joint employers when the plaintiff did not plausibly allege that one exercised significant control over him or that employer and the plaintiff's employer shared or co-determined those matters governing essential terms and conditions of his employment. [ Hewitt v. BS Transportation of Illinois, LLC, §3.05[A][3]]
• Anonymous bathroom graffiti constituted harassment based on sex. The particular epithet has a sufficiently “sex-specific and derogatory” meaning “as to make it clear that the harasser is motivated by general hostility to the presence of women in the workplace.” [Xueyan Zhou v. Intergraph Corporation]

• The district court was not required to instruct the jury that a firefighter could not recover if she was harassed solely because of her sexual orientation in a Title VII action against the city, its fire department, and union asserting claims for gender-based hostile work environment discrimination, and retaliation. There was sufficient evidence to support a jury's finding that a firefighter was subjected to a hostile work environment. [Franchina v. City of Providence]

• A magistrate's order granting employees’ motion to compel discovery from employer of complaints related to sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, hostile work environment, and retaliation, and full investigation files rather than summaries, was not contrary to law in a putative class action by employees against their employer, alleging that the employer had a continuing policy, pattern, and practice of sex discrimination against female employees, with respect to performance evaluations, pay, promotions, and other terms and conditions of employment, and asserting claims for intentional discrimination and disparate impact under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. [Kennicott v. Sandia Corporation]

• A proposed class of female truck drivers failed to satisfy predominance, superiority, and commonality requirements for their Title VII claim that their employer had a pattern or practice of tolerating hostile work environment based on its refusal to find corroboration of sexual harassment claims absent eyewitness or admission, failure to impose discipline even when sexual harassment by male co-drivers was corroborated, and failure to adequately discipline driver managers (DMs) for failing to act promptly in responding to complaints of sexual harassment by male co-drivers, as required for class certification. [Sellars v. CRST Expedited, Inc.]

• The public disclosure of the plaintiffs’ true identities was likely to result in psychological harm in a sexual harassment suit in which plaintiffs alleged that each Jane Doe already suffered depression of varying degrees, anxiety, panic attacks, and social isolation. The public disclosure of the plaintiffs’ private identities would compound and exacerbate the psychological trauma they have already suffered, especially in the age of the Internet. [Doe 1 v. George Washington University]

• The Supreme Court has held that Title VII's charge-filing requirement is not jurisdictional in an action by a former county employee against the county, alleging retaliation and religious discrimination in violation of Title VII. A claim-processing rule requiring parties to take certain procedural steps in, or prior to, litigation, may be mandatory in the sense that a court must enforce the rule if timely raised. But a mandatory rule like that is ordinarily forfeited if not timely asserted. [Fort Bend County, Texas v. Davis]

• The EEOC and former employee brought a Title VII action against former employer, an automobile parts manufacturer, alleging that the employer terminated the employee in retaliation for making a sexual harassment complaint. The fact that the EEOC found no cause for a sexual harassment claim may be relevant to defendant's argument that it formed an honest belief that claimant lied after conducting a reasonable investigation. However, the jury is capable of making its own determination regarding the reasonableness of defendant's investigation and the honesty of its belief without hearing the EEOC's findings. [EEOC v. HP Pelzer Automotive Systems Inc.]

• A plaintiff failed to present evidence from which a reasonable juror could conclude that the alleged harasser's sexual advances were unwelcome, including the plethora of email communication between the plaintiff and her alleged harasser, in which she unambiguously stated her desires to have sexual relations with him, among other things, and in light of plaintiff's failure to provide any evidence that she clearly indicated to the alleged harasser that his conduct would be considered offensive. It could not be reasonably disputed that, based on her own conduct, the plaintiff's interactions with her alleged harasser were welcomed and encouraged. [ Holmes v. North Texas Health Care Laundry Cooperative Association]

• In an action raising important issues about employer liability for a hostile work environment created by third parties and about non-employer liability for employment-related discrimination under the Maine Human Rights Act (MHRA), a plaintiff nurse, employed by Correct Care Solutions, LLC (CCS), at a Maine Department of Corrections (MDOC) prison, alleged that sexual harassment by the prison's corrections officers made her work environment hostile and that she was retaliated against for complaints about the hostile work environment and for other whistleblowing. CCS had an obligation to try to protect the plaintiff from a hostile work environment and the reasonableness rule consistently applied in third-party harassment claims is adequate to account for the complexities of her workplace. [Roy v. Correct Care Solutions]

• An employer failed to have an effective mechanism to prevent and correct a foreman's alleged sexual harassment of employees, thus precluding an Ellerth-Faragher defense. The court found that the employer was vicariously liable for the actions of the foreman as a supervisor. [Washington v. Horning Brothers]

• A female former public employee failed to plausibly allege that the governor was personally aware of sexual harassment complaints against the regional president in an action against the State of New York, the Empire State Development Corporation, the governor in his individual capacity, the former regional president of Empire State Development Corporation, and other related parties alleging that she was sexually harassed by the former regional president and that the state and governor failed to prevent or investigate alleged sexual harassment. [Cater v. New York]