Los Angeles Sexual Assault Lawyer Blog

This is a time of serious struggles. Finding a job is critical to acquiring health insurance, money for food, gas, electricity; basically, everything. Because there is so much competition in this current job market, employees fear that they can easily lose their jobs. Although these fears are understandable, people cannot allow themselves to be mistreated in their workplace.

Our Los Angeles sexual assault attorneys understand the struggle so many people are facing, and we are here to fight for your rights if you have been harassed in your workplace.

Dulaney v. Packing Corp. of America, et. al. is an recent appeal from a district court granting summary judgment to an employer in a sexual harassment case. This case involves a company, Packing Corp. of America ("PCA"), which is a manufacturer. It serves to illustrate the intricacies involved in Los Angeles sexual harassment and wrongful termination cases.

This appellate court discusses a very common defense used by employers in these sexual harassment cases, the Faragher-Elleth doctrine. This doctrine protects an employer where they are sued because of the harassment of an employee by a manager. It requires a nexus between the employers' actions and a tangible change in the employment of the employee. Additionally, the court says it must observe the care the employer took in preventing and resolving and harassment as well as the employee's acts to use corporate safeguards in instances where this is occurring.

Defendant had a mostly male staff in their Roanoke, Virginia facility. There was no employee on duty with a managerial job title although there was an employee who acted in a managerial capacity. Bobby Mills had the authority given to him by his superiors to assign work, send employees home early from work without pay, and discipline employees in accordance with the company disciplinary structure. This disciplinary structure required Mills to assess points to employees who misbehaved. Mills was also tasked with reporting employee complaints and misconduct to the company's management. Furthermore, Mills had sole access to the administrative section of the office during this second shift.

PCA had a general practice of hiring temporary hourly employees but offering them permanent employment after a certain amount of hours was worked. Plaintiff was hired as a temporary glue helper on the second shift in this Virginia facility. Seeking to advance, plaintiff discussed with Mills the possibility of her becoming a permanent employee. Although PCA claims Mills was not working in a managerial capacity, he ultimately extended an offer on behalf of PCA for permanent employment to Dulaney.

Once plaintiff was a permanent employee, Mills told plaintiff that he would make her life "hell" if she did not engage in sexual conduct with him. Fearing she would lose her employment, Dulaney assented and began to have sexual relations with Mills within the workplace. These encounters occurred within the sections of the facility that only Mills had access. Mills allegedly threatened plaintiff indicating that if she ever failed to cooperate with his sexual requests he would scream at her, spread rumors about her and interfere with her work. On instances when plaintiff refused Mills, she was sent home early without pay.

Subsequently, Mills began to spread sexually explicit rumors about the plaintiff which plaintiff argues made her co-workers mistreat her. Because of this increasingly unproductive environment, Dulaney reported these harassing actions to Mills' direct supervisor. This supervisor, Donnie Woodward, responded to plaintiff indicating that she should be careful because she was "replaceable." He threatened to fire plaintiff if she reported these things to his supervisor.

After significant time in this uncomfortable situation, Mills was fired. Unfortunately plaintiff was ostracized and bullied by her co-workers leading her to seek employment elsewhere. There is significant dispute surrounding the severance agreement.
Plaintiff then sued PCA and Mills for gender discrimination and sexual harassment and sought to hold them jointly and severally liable for compensatory and punitive damages.

PCA asserted the Faragher-Elleth doctrine which provides a defense for a company in cases of supervisor harassment if: if the employer exercised reasonable care to promptly correct any acts of sexual harassment and it can be found that the plaintiff unreasonably failed in taking advantage of the corporate safeguards available to avoid this type of harm. In determining whether this defense is available to an employer, the court must first evaluate whether the plaintiff suffered a "tangible employment action." This is often defined as a hiring, firing, failing to be promoted, reassignment, or a decision causing the employee to have a significant change in benefits.

The court here held that based on the facts it appears that the plaintiff was in fact fired because the conditions were made so that she could not continue to work at PCA. Therefore, it is sufficient where there is a nexus between the harassment and the tangible employment action.

Therefore, because there was still a dispute of fact surrounding the break of employment with PCA, this court found that summary judgment was inappropriate and the case should be reheard by the lower court.