Opinion ID: 1478545
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Severe or Pervasive

Text: We turn next to the requirement that the alleged harassing conduct be severe or pervasive. We emphasize that it is the harassing conduct that must be severe or pervasive, not its effect on the plaintiff or on the work environment. Ellison v. Brady, 924 F. 2d 872, 878 (9th Cir.1991). The disjunctive severe or pervasive standard is in conformity with federal Title VII law. The United States Supreme Court in Meritor held that for sexual harassment to be actionable, it must be sufficiently severe or pervasive to cause the requisite harm. 477 U.S. at 67, 106 S.Ct. at 2405, 91 L.Ed. 2d at 60 (emphasis added). We specifically reject the regular and pervasive standard created in Andrews, supra, 895 F. 2d 1469, and adopted by the majority below. First, that formulation is incompatible with the severe or pervasive standard set forth by the Supreme Court in Meritor. Second, a regular and pervasive standard would bar actions based on a single, extremely severe incident or, perhaps, even those based on multiple but randomly-occurring incidents of harassment. We find that result improper. Although it will be a rare and extreme case in which a single incident will be so severe that it would, from the perspective of a reasonable woman, make the working environment hostile, such a case is certainly possible. The LAD was designed to prevent the harm of hostile working environments. No purpose is served by allowing that harm to go unremedied merely because it was brought about by a single, severe incident of harassment rather than by multiple incidents of harassment. The fact patterns of many reported cases suggest, however, that most plaintiffs claiming hostile work environment sexual harassment allege numerous incidents that, if considered individually, would be insufficiently severe to state a claim, but considered together are sufficiently pervasive to make the work environment intimidating or hostile. [T]he required showing of severity or seriousness of the harassing conduct varies inversely with the pervasiveness or frequency of the conduct. Ellison, supra, 924 F. 2d at 878. Rather than considering each incident in isolation, courts must consider the cumulative effect of the various incidents, bearing in mind `that each successive episode has its predecessors, that the impact of the separate incidents may accumulate, and that the work environment created may exceed the sum of the individual episodes.' Burns v. McGregor Elec. Indus., 955 F. 2d 559, 564 (8th Cir.1992) (quoting Robinson v. Jacksonville Shipyards, 760 F. Supp. 1486, 1524 (M.D.Fla. 1991)). A play cannot be understood on the basis of some of its scenes but only on its entire performance, and similarly, a discrimination analysis must concentrate not on individual incidents but on the overall scenario. Andrews, supra, 895 F. 2d at 1484.