Opinion ID: 783149
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Implied Conditions

Text: 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