Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 792.0

524US2

Unit: $U99

[09-15-00 14:41:05] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 524 U. S. 742 (1998)

747

Opinion of the Court

seq., an employee who refuses the unwelcome and threaten-
ing sexual advances of a supervisor, yet suffers no adverse,
tangible job consequences, can recover against the employer
without showing the employer is negligent or otherwise at
fault for the supervisor’s actions.

I

Summary judgment was granted for the employer, so we
must take the facts alleged by the employee to be true.
United States v. Diebold, Inc., 369 U. S. 654, 655 (1962) (per
curiam). The employer is Burlington Industries, the peti-
tioner. The employee is Kimberly Ellerth, the respondent.
From March 1993 until May 1994, Ellerth worked as a sales-
person in one of Burlington’s divisions in Chicago, Illinois.
During her employment, she alleges, she was subjected
to constant sexual harassment by her supervisor, one Ted
Slowik.

In the hierarchy of Burlington’s management structure,
Slowik was a midlevel manager. Burlington has eight divi-
sions, employing more than 22,000 people in some 50 plants
around the United States. Slowik was a vice president in
one of ﬁve business units within one of the divisions. He
had authority to make hiring and promotion decisions
subject to the approval of his supervisor, who signed the pa-
perwork. See 912 F. Supp. 1101, 1119, n. 14 (ND Ill. 1996).
According to Slowik’s supervisor, his position was “not
considered an upper-level management position,” and he was
“not amongst the decision-making or policy-making hierar-
chy.”
Ibid. Slowik was not Ellerth’s immediate supervi-
sor. Ellerth worked in a two-person ofﬁce in Chicago, and
she answered to her ofﬁce colleague, who in turn answered
to Slowik in New York.

Against a background of repeated boorish and offensive
remarks and gestures which Slowik allegedly made, Ellerth
places particular emphasis on three alleged incidents where
Slowik’s comments could be construed as threats to deny her