Opinion ID: 2995181
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Harassment by Co-Workers

Text: Plaintiff also alleges that she was harassed by her co-workers, and that their harassment, coupled with that of her supervisors, created a hostile work environment. Employers are only liable for co-worker harassment if the plaintiff demonstrates that the employer was negligent in some fashion. See Adusumilli v. City of Chi., 164 F.3d 353, 361 (7th Cir. 1998). In hostile work environment cases, the employer can avoid liability for its employees’ harassment if it takes prompt and appropriate corrective action reasonably likely to prevent the harassment from recurring. Tutman v. WBBM-TV, Inc., 209 F.3d 1044, 1048 (7th Cir. 2000), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 121 S. Ct. 777, 148 L. Ed. 2d 675 (2001). As we have already noted, however, the School District has not presented evidence that it took any type of correc tive action once plaintiff filed her ERD complaint. Thus, this is not like the majority of the cases we consider, in which plaintiff contests the efficacy of the employers response; see, e.g., Shaw v. AutoZone, Inc., 180 F.3d 806, 811-12 (7th Cir. 1999), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 1076, 120 S. Ct. 790, 145 L. Ed. 2d 666 (2000), this is a case where the employer simply did not act. We conclude that a reasonable fact finder could find that the School District’s failure to take any steps to investigate plaintiff’s allegations or to act on them in any way constituted negligence.