Prospect Airport Services has some 4000 employees nationwide, some of these provide gate services (such as wheelchair assistance) at the Las Vegas airport. Prospect found itself on the wrong end of a sexual harassment lawsuit by the EEOC when a female co-worker began propositioning a male employee. Today, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held the female's harassment was severe enough to warrant a trial even though the female touched the male only once.
The female attempted to begin the relationship with a note which said she was “turned on” and wanted to “go out" with the male but the male told her he was not interested. She continued with several more notes, including a photograph of herself, "a head and shoulders-type shot with a pressing together of the breasts. . . . no clothing on that portion . . . . the cleavage of the breasts sort of together." She persisted, telling him she "gave a “very good bath wash and body massage" adding, “I do want you sexually and romantically.”
The male made several complaints to his supervisor who promised to address it but did not. He later complained to her supervisor who supposedly told the male he "did not want to get involved in personal matters" but did tell the female co-worker to stop. Instead of stopping she increased the frequency of her suggestive comments and enlisted co-workers to pressure the male. Some asked him if he was gay (he wasn't). The male was finally fired for poor performance which he attributed to the constant harassment.
Female to male harassment claims are rare, of course, though we can speculate that if they are going to happen, they are as likely to happen in Las Vegas as anywhere. The court rejected any suggestion that a different standard applied because the victim was male:
It cannot be assumed that because a man receives sexual advances from a woman that those advances are welcome. [The male] suggested this might be true of other men (the district court decision noted that [the male] "admits that most men in his circumstances would have 'welcomed'" her advances). But that is a stereotype and welcomeness is inherently subjective, (since the interest two individuals might have in a romantic relationship is inherently individual to them), so it does not matter to welcomeness whether other men might have welcomed [the female's] sexual propositions.
But perhaps more interesting, and equally applicable regardless of whether the male is the harasser or victim, is the holding that the conduct was severe or pervasive enough to amount to actionable harassment even though the only contact by the female was a kiss on the cheek. This was not "severe" harassment but it was pervasive because the female's:
pursuit of [[the male] was relentless. She would not leave him alone, despite his repeated clear rejections of her overtures. She recruited other co-workers to deliver messages to him; the campaign broadened to include the whole workplace. Other workers began mocking [the male] for his failure to respond to [the female's] sexual advances. [The male] described over six months of constant (and often daily) sexual pressure and humiliation from [the female] and other co-workers.
This being co-worker harassment, the male also had to show the employer's response to his complaints was inadequate. Here, the court said, there was no contest:
His immediate supervisor . . . failed even to tell [the female] to stop. He repeatedly brought his concerns to others in management, and a manager told [the female] to stop, but management did nothing about it when [the female] did not stop, and management knew she had not. Instead the assistant general manager told [the male] Lamas to sing to himself “I’m too sexy for my shirt.”
While the moral of the story is probably obvious, employers who rely on a stereotyped view of any harassment complaint are asking for costly litigation. Any employee who complains about harassment should be taken seriously and the complaint investigated. The complaint may ultimately be proven to be meritless for any number of reasons but that should not be assumed at the start based upon stereotyped beliefs. And, of course, supervisors and managers should be trained how to deal with (or report) harassment complaints.
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