Faragher v. City of Boca Raton
524 U.S. 775 (1998)
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Rule of Law:
An employer is vicariously liable for an actionable hostile work environment created by a supervisor with authority over the employee. However, when no tangible employment action is taken, the employer may raise an affirmative defense by proving it exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct the behavior, and the employee unreasonably failed to utilize the employer's preventive or corrective opportunities.
Facts:
- Between 1985 and 1990, Beth Ann Faragher worked as an ocean lifeguard for the City of Boca Raton.
- Her immediate supervisors, Bill Terry and David Silverman, subjected Faragher and other female lifeguards to repeated, uninvited, and offensive touching, lewd remarks, and demeaning comments about women.
- Specific incidents included Silverman telling Faragher, "Date me or clean the toilets for a year," and Terry making crude comments about female bodies.
- The lifeguards worked at a remote location, isolated from higher-level city management.
- The City of Boca Raton had adopted a sexual harassment policy in 1986 but completely failed to disseminate it to the employees in the Marine Safety Section.
- Consequently, Faragher, her fellow lifeguards, and the harassing supervisors were unaware of the City's policy.
- Faragher spoke informally about the harassment to another supervisor, Robert Gordon, but she did not view these conversations as formal complaints, and Gordon did not report them to higher management.
- In April 1990, another former lifeguard wrote a formal letter of complaint to the City's Personnel Director, which prompted an investigation.
Procedural Posture:
- Beth Ann Faragher filed suit against the City of Boca Raton and her supervisors in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
- After a bench trial, the District Court found the City liable for the supervisors' harassment and awarded Faragher nominal damages.
- The City of Boca Raton appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
- An appellate panel for the Eleventh Circuit reversed the trial court's judgment.
- The Eleventh Circuit, sitting en banc, affirmed the panel's decision, finding the City was not liable for the supervisors' conduct.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted Faragher's petition for a writ of certiorari to resolve a split among the circuit courts.
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Issue:
Under Title VII, is an employer vicariously liable for a supervisor's creation of a sexually hostile work environment, even if the employer was unaware of the supervisor's conduct?
Opinions:
Majority - Justice Souter
Yes. An employer is subject to vicarious liability to a victimized employee for an actionable hostile environment created by a supervisor with immediate (or successively higher) authority over the employee. Drawing from agency law principles, specifically the concept that a supervisor is 'aided in accomplishing the tort by the existence of the agency relation,' the Court concluded that a supervisor's authority, conferred by the employer, is the key factor. This power enables harassment and can deter victims from complaining. To reconcile this vicarious liability with Title VII's preventative goals and the Court's prior holding in Meritor that liability is not automatic, the Court established an affirmative defense. This defense is available only when no tangible employment action (e.g., firing, demotion) is taken. The employer must prove by a preponderance of the evidence: (a) that it exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly any sexually harassing behavior, and (b) that the plaintiff employee unreasonably failed to take advantage of any preventive or corrective opportunities. In this case, the City could not assert the defense as a matter of law because its complete failure to disseminate its anti-harassment policy meant it did not exercise reasonable care.
Dissenting - Justice Thomas
No. Absent an adverse employment consequence, an employer cannot be held vicariously liable if a supervisor creates a hostile work environment. The dissent argues that vicarious liability is inappropriate for hostile environment harassment that does not culminate in a tangible employment action, as such conduct falls outside the scope of the supervisor's employment. The proper standard for employer liability in such cases should be negligence, not vicarious liability. The case should have been remanded for a determination of whether the City was negligent. The majority erred in concluding that the City's failure to disseminate its policy constituted negligence as a matter of law, as the City should have been allowed to show that other complaint channels were available or that distributing the policy would not have prevented the harm.
Analysis:
This landmark decision, along with its companion case Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth, clarified the standard for employer liability for supervisor harassment under Title VII. It established a new framework of vicarious liability coupled with an affirmative defense, which incentivizes employers to implement and publicize robust anti-harassment policies and complaint procedures. The ruling shifted the legal focus from whether the employer knew about the harassment to whether the employer took reasonable steps to prevent it and whether the employee acted reasonably in response. This standard has profoundly influenced corporate compliance programs and the way hostile work environment claims are litigated.
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