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A. TITLE AND CITATION:Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775
B. TYPE OF ACTION: The plaintiff, Beth Ann Faragher, brough action against the city for nominal damages and other relief with allegations of sexual assault.
C. FACTS OF THE CASE: Beth Ann Faragher was supervised by Bill Terry and David Silverman while at her job as a lifeguard for the city. She alleges that she was sexually harassed for five years. Faragher claims that her male supervisors touched her offensively and without invitation, stated lewd remarks, and made offensive references to women. The two supervisors had virtually unchecked authority while Faragher was completely isolated from the city’s higher management authorities. The District Court ruled that the City could be held liable for the harassment of its supervisory employees. The Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit reversed the ruling of the District Court and judged that the city could not be held liable for Terry and Silverman’s actions. The Supreme Court reversed the ruling of the Eleventh Circuit and remanded for reinstatement of judgment of District Court.
D. CONTENTIONS OF THE PARTIES:
a. Plaintiffs Beth Ann Faragher contends that the harassment conduct displayed by her supervisors constituted discrimination in the “terms, conditions, and privileges” of her employment in violation of Title VII and of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
b. Defendant The City of Boca Raton denies liability for the harassment from the supervisors. The City seeks to prove that they did not facilitate the harassment nor did they have enough information about the situation to be held liable for negligence to prevent it.
E. ISSUE(S): Is the City of Boca Raton responsible or liable for the adverse actions of its employees who hold positions of power? If the City is liable, in what circumstances would they be able to create a sufficient defense?
F. DECISION: By grant of certiorari, the Supreme Court held: (1) that an employer is subject to vicarious liability under Title VII to a victimized employee for actionable discrimination caused by a supervisor, but employer may raise an affirmative defense that looks to the reasonableness of employer’s conduct in seeking to prevent and correct harassing conduct and to the reasonableness of employee’s conduct in seeking to avoid harm, (2) the city was vicariously liable to lifeguard in view of its failure to exercise reasonable care to prevent harassing behavior.
G. REASONING: The City was not found to have exercised reasonable care to prevent the two supervisors’ harassing conduct as required in Title VII. The city failed entirely to make its sexual harassment policies known among beach employees, city officials made no attempt to keep track of conduct of supervisors, and the city’s sexual harassment policy did not include any assurance that harassing supervisors could be bypassed when making a complaint.
H. RULE OF LAW: Even though employment discrimination provisions of Title VII mention specific employment decisions with immediate consequences, scope of the prohibition is not limited to ‘tangible” or “economic” discrimination.
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