Opinion ID: 783149
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Caltech's Liability On A Tangible Employment Action Theory

Text: 18 The first issue that we must consider is whether Holly D. has alleged the type of discriminatory action by her supervisor for which her employer may be held liable without more — the type of discriminatory action to which the employer may not assert a reasonable care defense. There is no question that a tangible employment action occurs when a supervisor abuses his authority to act on his employer's behalf by threatening to fire a subordinate if she refuses to participate in sexual acts with him, and then actually fires her when she continues to resist his demands. See Ellerth, 524 U.S. at 753-54, 118 S.Ct. 2257. The question in this case is whether a tangible employment action occurs when the supervisor threatens the employee with discharge and, in order to avoid the threatened action, the employee complies with the supervisor's demands. We join the Second Circuit — the only other circuit to have directly confronted the issue since Faragher/Ellerth — in holding that it does.
19 The Supreme Court has not yet resolved the question of how the successful coercion of sex by a supervisor who has brought to bear the weight of the business enterprise and thereby compelled an unwilling employee to submit to his sexual demands fits into the Faragher/Ellerth dichotomy. The Court first addressed the subject generally in Meritor Sav. Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 106 S.Ct. 2399, 91 L.Ed.2d 49 (1986). There, the plaintiff alleged circumstances similar to those alleged by Holly D.: a supervisor requested sexual relations of his subordinate, and out of what she described as fear of losing her job she eventually agreed, leading to a prolonged period of submission to unwelcome sexual demands. Id. at 60, 106 S.Ct. 2399. The Court found that such allegations were sufficient to state a claim for sexual harassment under Title VII, but the Court decline[d] the parties' invitation to issue a definitive rule on employer liability for the harassment in question. Id. at 72, 106 S.Ct. 2399. Rather, given the state of the record, it remanded the case and directed the lower courts to look to agency principles for guidance in developing standards for employer liability under Title VII for a supervisor's conduct. Id. 20 Twelve years later, the Faragher and Ellerth cases provided a partial answer to the Meritor question. In Faragher, the plaintiff alleged that she was subjected to repeated uninvited and offensive touching and sexual commentary by her supervisors, but she did not contend that she had any reason to believe that she would suffer any adverse employment consequences if she refused to accede to the inappropriate behavior. See Faragher, 524 U.S. at 780-82, 118 S.Ct. 2275. In Ellerth, the plaintiff's supervisor repeatedly implied that her career advancement depended on her willingness to be more sexually cooperative, but when she ignored his suggestions, she was nevertheless promoted, and suffered no career-inhibiting consequences. See Ellerth, 524 U.S. at 748, 751, 754, 118 S.Ct. 2257. In neither case, the Court concluded, did a tangible employment action occur. One case involved a threat of material employment-related action that the supervisor failed to implement in any respect, and in the other, no such threat or, indeed, employment action of any kind, transpired; all that occurred was the establishment of a hostile work environment in the traditional pre- Faragher/Ellerth sense of the term. 21 In neither Faragher nor Ellerth did the Court consider, or comment upon, the question of a supervisor's successful coercion of an employee who submits to her supervisor's sexual demands because of the threat of discharge or other material job-related consequence. Successful coercion, however, depends on the same abuse of supervisorial authority — the power, for example, to hire and fire — that, Faragher/Ellerth held, renders a discharge a tangible employment action. In such cases, the supervisor successfully brings to bear the weight of the employer's enterprise in order to achieve the unlawful purpose. In the typical tangible employment action case that reaches the courts, a supervisor has terminated a subordinate who refused to bow to his threats and declined to have sex with him. Because the discharge was possible only as a result of the supervisor's exercise of the authority to make critical employment decisions on behalf of his employer, the Court has held that in such cases the employer may be held vicariously liable and may not assert a reasonable care defense. The same rationale holds true in the less frequently litigated cases in which an employee, anxious to retain her position with the employer — a job that is likely to represent her sole means of earning a living — submits to her supervisor's sexual demands because he has advised her of a critical employment decision that he has made: to discharge her if she refuses to comply with his demands. In such cases, unlike in Ellerth, the threat does not simply remain unfulfilled or inchoate, but rather results in a concrete consequence. The supervisor accomplishes the objective of the threat — the coercion of the sexual act — by bringing to bear the authority to make critical employment determinations on behalf of his employer. 14 Specifically, the supervisor in such cases exercises the authority to make the initial conditional decision to discharge, and then to make the subsequent final decision to retain the employee in her position. In doing so, he makes the employee's continued employment contingent on her willingness to accede to his sexual demands. 22 Thus, the participation in unwanted sexual acts becomes a condition of the employee's employment — a critical condition that effects a substantial change in the terms of that employment. [O]nly a supervisor, or other person acting with the authority of the company, Ellerth, 524 U.S. at 762, 118 S.Ct. 2257, can successfully employ this sort of leverage — can effectively make so substantial a change in the employee's fundamental working conditions. Conditioning an employee's continued employment upon submission to sexual demands is not one of those circumstances where the supervisor's status makes little difference, id. at 763, 118 S.Ct. 2257. It directly involves the supervisor's ability to impose upon the employee the ultimate employment penalty — discharge — or to confer on her the ultimate employment benefit — the retention of her job. Thus, determining not to fire an employee who has been threatened with discharge constitutes a tangible employment action, at least where the reason for the change in the employment decision is that the employee has submitted to coercive sexual demands. See Steele v. Offshore Shipbuilding, Inc., 867 F.2d 1311, 1316 (11th Cir.1989) (When a supervisor requires sexual favors as quid pro quo for job benefits, the supervisor, by definition, acts as the company.) (approved by Faragher, 524 U.S. at 790-91, 118 S.Ct. 2275). Accordingly, we hold that in such circumstances, there has been a tangible employment action for purposes of Title VII. The employer may be held vicariously liable for the supervisor's unlawful conduct and may not take advantage of the Faragher/Ellerth defense. 23 Our pre- Faragher/Ellerth cases, although decided before the tangible employment action standard was expressed as such, are consistent with this analysis. These cases delineated the bounds of quid pro quo harassment — sex for jobs (or job benefits) — which only those acting on behalf of the employer have the capacity to extort. 15 We have long recognized that a supervisor's demand for sexual favors accompanied by a threat of discharge represents archetypical quid pro quo harassment, and in Nichols v. Frank, 42 F.3d 503 (9th Cir.1994), we found the employer strictly liable for such harassment when the employee's continued employment was conditioned on her participation in sexual acts. Id. at 513-14. Indeed, we recognized that such a case was clearly at the core of the harassment requiring respondeat superior liability. Id. at 516 (Fernandez, J., concurring). 24 In Faragher/Ellerth, the Supreme Court specifically mentioned Nichols when it affirmed the soundness of the results in these cases (and their continuing vitality). Faragher, 524 U.S. at 791, 118 S.Ct. 2275. The court then clarified, in part, the significance of the circuit courts' quid pro quo jurisprudence by explaining some of the circumstances in which employers would be held liable without the possibility of asserting an affirmative defense. Under the Court's Faragher/Ellerth decisions, such unconditional liability attaches only if a quid pro quo threat is implemented by some form of sufficiently concrete employment action. An unfulfilled, or inchoate, quid pro quo threat by a supervisor is not enough; 16 something more is required. Here, as we have explained, the threat is not unfulfilled or inchoate, but is implemented when the supervisor actually coerces sex by abusing the employer's authority, and thus makes concrete the condition of employment he has imposed. In short, the threat culminates in a tangible employment action. 25 The Ellerth Court offered examples of the sort of supervisory decisions that lead to the imposition of employer liability, without more. These examples provide strong evidence that extorting sexual favors by conditioning continued employment on the performance of sexual acts is properly deemed a tangible employment action. Among the examples contained in the Ellerth Court's illustrative list are actions such as hiring, firing, failing to promote, reassignment with significantly different responsibilities, or a decision causing a significant change in benefits, Ellerth, 524 U.S. at 761, 118 S.Ct. 2257. 26 Several aspects of the illustrative list are relevant to our analysis. First, we note that the employer's liability is not dependent on a change having occurred on the organizational chart; next, that the listed acts encompass both typical actions — such as hiring and firing — and typical omissions — such as failing to promote. We also find no reasoned distinction between the listed occurrences and their opposites. For example, if a supervisor commits a tangible employment action by hiring a job applicant only because she has agreed to comply with his sexual demands then, surely, such an action must also occur if the supervisor refuses to hire the applicant because she is unwilling to participate in the sexual acts on which he insists. If a supervisor commits a tangible employment action by failing to promote an employee who refuses to engage in sex with him, such an employment action must also result if he promotes the employee because she submits to his coercive demands. Most significant for this appeal, if a supervisor commits a tangible employment action by firing an employee because she refuses to enter into a sexual relationship, a tangible employment action must also occur when he determines not to fire her because she has performed the sexual acts he demanded. 27 Next, we note that a tangible employment action need not cause economic harm to the employee — the Ellerth list includes, for example, reassignment with significantly different responsibilities. Id. at 761, 118 S.Ct. 2257. It is true that in the more common tangible employment action cases, a supervisor demands sexual favors and, when refused, punishes his victim by an employment action that causes economic harm—the employee is fired or demoted as a consequence of her refusal to have sex with her supervisor. See Ellerth, 524 U.S. at 762, 118 S.Ct. 2257. The injury in such cases is clear. When, however, the victim submits to her supervisor's demands and is hired, promoted, not fired, or not demoted because she has been successfully coerced into engaging in sexual acts with him, she is also directly injured by the employment action. The injury in such cases — the physical and emotional damage resulting from performance of unwanted sexual acts as a condition of employment — is as tangible as an injury can be. Accord Jin v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 310 F.3d 84, 93 (2d Cir.2002). 17 28 The element common to each action described in the illustrative Ellerth list is that the supervisor has abused his authority to act on the employer's behalf by conditioning an important employment benefit or detriment on an employee's willingness or unwillingness to engage in sexual conduct. When a supervisor hires or promotes an employee because she complies with his sexual demands — or when he fires or passes her over for promotion because she refuses to comply — he has abused his authority as the employer's agent and has taken a tangible employment action. The same is true when a supervisor determines that the retention of an employee in the employer's employ will depend on her participation in sexual acts, and then either fires her because she does not participate or retains her in her position because she does. 18 29 In an extremely thorough opinion — the only circuit court opinion since Faragher/Ellerth to confront the issue directly — the Second Circuit has held that a subordinate's submission to her supervisor's quid pro quo demand for sexual favors constitutes a tangible employment action. In Jin v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 310 F.3d 84 (2d Cir.2002), the court found that [i]t is hardly surprising that [r]equiring an employee to engage in unwanted sex acts [—] one of the most pernicious and oppressive forms of sexual harassment that can occur in the workplace — fits squarely within the definition of `tangible employment action' that the Supreme Court announced in Faragher and Ellerth. Id. at 94. 30 Jin recognized the propriety of tying its analysis to the supervisor's abuse of authority. Id. at 97. The Jin court stated that the supervisor in question used his authority to impose on [his subordinate] the added job requirement that she submit to weekly sexual abuse in order to retain her employment, and that [i]t was [the supervisor's] empowerment by [the employer] as an agent who could make economic decisions affecting employees under his control that enabled him to force [his subordinate] to submit to his weekly sexual abuse. Id. at 94. As the court recognized, when a supervisor abuses this power to control the workplace by conditioning employment on sexual favors, the most relevant factor in apportioning liability is the conduct of the employer's ostensible agent. A contrary rule, allowing the employer's opportunity to avoid liability for its agent's misconduct to depend on an employee's capacity to resist his advances and provoke her own discharge, would punish employees who submit because, for example, they desperately need the income to make house payments, or because a sick spouse or child depends on their health benefits. Id. at 99 (internal citations omitted). 31 The Jin court also found persuasive a 1999 EEOC Enforcement Guidance on the topic. [A]s the agency charged with enforcing Title VII, the EEOC's interpretation of the statute `constitute[s] a body of experience and informed judgment to which courts and litigants may properly resort for guidance.' Id. at 95 (quoting Meritor, 477 U.S. at 65, 106 S.Ct. 2399). Such interpretations are entitled to respect, see Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 110 n. 6, 122 S.Ct. 2061, 153 L.Ed.2d 106 (2002) (internal quotation marks omitted), as the Jin court implicitly recognized: 32 A 1999 [EEOC Enforcement Guidance], issued specifically to address post- Faragher/Ellerth employer liability, provides the following additional analysis: If a supervisor undertakes or recommends a tangible job action based on a subordinate's response to unwelcome sexual demands, the employer is liable and cannot raise the affirmative defense. The result is the same whether the employee rejects the demands and is subjected to an adverse tangible employment action or submits to the demands and consequently obtains a tangible job benefit. Such harassment previously would have been characterized as `quid pro quo.' Therefore, under the 1999 EEOC Guidance, [the employer] would be automatically liable if [the supervisor] granted [the employee] a tangible job benefit, such as the retention of her employment, based on her submission to his sexual demands. 33 Jin, 310 F.3d at 94-95 (emphasis added) (internal citation omitted); see also EEOC Enforcement Guidance: Vicarious Employer Liability for Unlawful Harassment by Supervisors, § IV.B, No. 915.002 (June 18, 1999)[hereinafter 1999 EEOC Guidance]; Matvia v. Bald Head Island Mgmt., Inc., 259 F.3d 261, 267-68 (4th Cir.2001) (noting that a tangible employment action may occur when harassing supervisors bestow benefits in exchange for an employee's acquiescence). 34 The Third Circuit, after carefully analyzing Faragher/Ellerth, explicitly endorsed Jin's reasoning, as well as its holding. In Suders v. Easton, 325 F.3d 432 (3d Cir. 2003), the court wrote: 35 [C]ourts have explicitly recognized that some of the most pernicious forms of workplace harassment, clearly amounting to tangible employment actions, are often not accompanied by official company acts. This is especially true in quid pro quo cases where a victimized employee submits to a supervisor's demands for sexual favors in return for job benefits, such as continued employment. . . . [I]t is rare that a supervisor's demands for sexual liberties, and the corresponding threat of adverse consequences for failure to submit, will be documented anywhere in company records. Therefore, a rule requiring a victimized employee who submits to a supervisor's indecent demand for sexual favors to prove an official company act in order to establish a tangible employment action strains common sense. As the Second Circuit has held, the more sensible approach in the quid pro quo context is to recognize that, by his or her actions, a supervisor invokes the official authority of the enterprise[.] 36 Id. at 458-59 (emphasis added). 37 Like the Third Circuit, we fully agree with Jin. We join the Second Circuit in holding that, in addition to those acts explicitly mentioned in Ellerth, a tangible employment action occurs when a supervisor extorts sexual favors from an employee by conditioning her continued employment on her participation in unwelcome sexual acts. Thus, a Faragher/Ellerth affirmative defense is not available to the employer, whether the supervisor who abuses his supervisorial authority succeeds in coercing an employee to engage in sexual acts by threats of discharge, or fails in his efforts to coerce the employee and then actually discharges her on account of her refusal to submit to his demands. Either way, the abuse of supervisorial authority results in a tangible employment action that causes significant injury to the employee involved.
38 Here, although Holly D. has properly alleged a tangible employment action, we conclude that, in response to the motions for summary judgment, she failed to present sufficient evidence to raise a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Wiggins implicitly threatened to discharge her or conditioned her continued employment on her submission to his sexual demands. 39
40 We first note that Holly D. need not prove that Wiggins explicitly demanded sex in return for job security — the factual circumstances present in Jin — in order to prevail on a tangible employment action claim. Cf. Jin, 310 F.3d at 89, 95. Such a claim may lie either when continued employment has been expressly conditioned on participation in sexual acts or when the supervisor's words or conduct would communicate to a reasonable woman in the employee's position that such participation is a condition of employment. See, e.g., Heyne, 69 F.3d at 1478 (finding liability for either explicit or implicit demands); Nichols, 42 F.3d at 511 (same). A practitioner's guide surveying the law of several circuits correctly explains: 41 It is enough that the individual making the unwelcome sexual advance was plaintiff's supervisor, and that a link to employment benefits could [reasonably] be inferred under the circumstances. 42 MING W. CHIN eT AL., CAL. PRACTICE GUIDE EMPLOYMENT LITIG. ¶ 10:51 (2002). 43 Nor must Holly D. prove that Wiggins intended that her continued employment would actually be contingent on her compliance with his requests — that is, she need not offer proof of his subjective intent to fire or demote her if she did not comply. Rather, it would be sufficient to show that a reasonable person in Holly D.'s position would have believed that her job depended on fulfilling Wiggins's demands. 19 See Nichols, 42 F.3d at 511-12; Fuller v. City of Oakland, 47 F.3d 1522, 1527 (9th Cir.1995); Ellison v. Brady, 924 F.2d 872, 878-80 (9th Cir.1991). However, we reiterate that the most 44 difficult factual and legal questions will almost always arise whenever either the conditioning of benefits (or absence of detriment) or the request for favors is not explicit, but is instead implicit in the harasser's communications or dealings with his prey. . . . Harassment in cases of implicit conditioning can be inferred only from the particular facts and circumstances of the case. We must examine each such charge with the utmost care, for an error either way can result in a gross injustice and will often have a disastrous impact on the life of whichever person is truly the injured party. 45 Nichols, 42 F.3d at 512 (opinion of Reinhardt, J.). In some cases, an injustice can result simply from allowing an unmeritorious case to proceed to trial; in others, it may result from the denial of a fair hearing to a legitimate victim of sexual harassment. Either way, in cases alleging that an employee engaged in sexual relations because her supervisor implicitly demanded that she do so as a condition of her employment, we require more than conclusory allegations that the supervisor proposed a sexual liaison and the employee responded to the overtures in order to protect her employment interests. 46 Given the amount of time Americans spend at work and the degree to which women have been absorbed at every level into a workforce that was once largely all-male, it is especially important to scrutinize carefully the facts and circumstances of each case. It is not easy, let alone desirable, to attempt to regulate sexual attractions among persons working together or to proscribe romances that may develop and even flourish in the workplace. Some of these relationships will, if nature is allowed to take its course, develop between persons at different levels in the hierarchy, just as hierarchical boundaries have failed to contain romance throughout history. See, e.g., Glenn Frankel, Mrs. Simpson's Other Man; Britain Opens Files on Royal Intrigue of 1930s, WASH. POST, Jan. 30, 2003, at A1 (describing the romance of Mrs. Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII, the Prince of Wales). The workplace is not and should not be a sterile or barren space, and it is not the job of the legislature or the courts to make it so. However, not all attempts at courtship or coupling are legitimate, and all three branches of government have emphatically declared that it is our role to enjoin and remedy predatory workplace conduct so that all workers may earn a living with dignity, free from sexual harassment or abuse. Given the imbalance of power, persistent unwanted sexual attention from a supervisor has the potential to result in significant harm. A supervisor may find love or companionship with one he oversees, but he may not use his position to extort sexual favors from an unwilling employee. In the end, given all of the intangibles involved in the development of relationships between human beings, we proceed with particular caution when examining claims of sexual harassment based on implicit rather than explicit threats to condition employment benefits or detriments on an employee's participation in sexual acts. 47
48 After the most careful examination, we conclude that in this case Holly D. has not presented sufficient evidence to raise a genuine issue of material fact with respect to whether Wiggins conditioned her continued employment, implicitly or otherwise, on her having sex with him. While the question is admittedly close, our answer is dictated by the record made below. 49 We recognize that [t]he evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, and all reasonable inferences must be drawn in favor of that party. If conflicting inferences may be drawn from the facts, the case must go to the jury. LaLonde v. County of Riverside, 204 F.3d 947, 959 (9th Cir.2000) (citations omitted). Nevertheless, after considering all of the sworn declarations, lodged depositions, authenticated documents, and undisputed admissions, and after drawing all reasonable inferences in Holly D.'s favor, we conclude that a reasonable woman in Holly D.'s position would not have had cause to believe that she would be fired or that she would suffer any other tangible employment consequences if she declined to have sex with Wiggins. 50 Holly D. knew that Wiggins was a demanding and at times arbitrary supervisor, and that he had given her an initial evaluation that was not encouraging. She also knew that Wiggins was prone to making statements concerning sex, to commenting on his own sexual proclivities, and to demonstrating his familiarity with pornographic websites. Sometimes, he pressed on, even when she expressed no interest in the subject, although she also knew that he would stop the discussions when she made it clear that she wanted him to. 51 Even assuming, without deciding, that Wiggins created an uncomfortably sexualized environment and that he was a difficult and demanding boss, the evidence in this case does not permit the inference that his conduct, implicit or explicit, would have caused a reasonable woman in Holly D.'s position to believe that her continued employment was dependent upon her providing him with sexual favors, or that there would be no point in declining his first invitation to engage in sex. Holly D. has produced no evidence whatsoever connecting any discussion of her job duties with Wiggins's requests that she engage in sexual acts with him. Nor is there any evidence that Wiggins ever mentioned any potential change in her employment status, or indeed any job-related matters or problems, during any discussion regarding her participation in sexual acts with him, or while actually engaged in such acts. See Nichols, 42 F.3d at 512-13 (opinion of Reinhardt, J.) (noting that a verbal nexus between work-related discussions and sexual requests, although not necessary to a finding of an actionable quid pro quo offer, often helps to establish the existence of an implicit condition). Indeed, the first time that Wiggins asked Holly D. to engage in a sexual act — to which request she replied simply and directly, Yes — he did so in a discussion in which the record reveals no mention of any subject other than sex. 20 The mere fact that Holly D. received a less than enthusiastic initial job evaluation weeks earlier does not, without more, support her contention that her compliance with Wiggins's initial request for sex was necessary to save her job. Moreover, other than her vague and unsupported allegation that during the course of their one-and-a-half-year sexual relationship, Wiggins grew supercritical when she rejected his advances, Holly D. has presented no evidence that would cause a reasonable woman in her position to believe that Wiggins suggested, directly or indirectly, the existence of a connection between her job security and his requests for sex. Holly D.'s unsubstantiated assertions describing Wiggins's behavior in so vague and general a manner are not sufficient to overcome the motion for summary judgment. See note 3, supra; see also FTC v. Publishing Clearing House, Inc., 104 F.3d 1168, 1171 (9th Cir.1997). 52 On this record, drawing all inferences and resolving all disputed facts in her favor, Holly D. has not presented sufficient evidence to allow a jury to find that a reasonable woman in her position would have believed that, in order to keep her job, she was required to accept Wiggins's initial invitation to engage in sex or thereafter to continue the sexual liaison over a one-and-a-half-year period. The mere fact that Wiggins was interested in sex generally and desired to have sex with Holly D. is simply not enough. 21 Because on this record insufficient evidence suggests that Wiggins explicitly or implicitly demanded sexual favors from Holly D. in return for job security or other benefits, we hold that the district court did not err in ordering summary judgment for Caltech on Holly D.'s tangible employment action claim. 53