Opinion ID: 1328158
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Reprisal Claim

Text: In addition to the above discussed basis for reversing the lower court's decision, there is a second basis for overturning the trial court's order. Appellant argues that the lower court made no ruling in its order of January 3, 2002, with regard to her reprisal claim. Apparently, the trial court presumed that if there was no sexual harassment, there could be no reprisal. [17] We refuted that notion in Szabo when we explained: Thus, even if the circuit court was correct that there was no actionable sexual harassment, the plaintiff could still have been engaged in a protected activity if she complained about being sexually harassed. 198 W.Va. at 375, 480 S.E.2d at 814. In Hanlon, we explained the rationale for encouraging the reporting of suspected sexual harassment, even prior to the time when such conduct may become actionable: The legislative purpose in including the antiretaliation provision was obviously to encourage people to come forward and expose unlawful employment practices and to do so without fear of reprisal. By protecting reasonable, good faith opposition, the provision also advances the statutory purpose of ending discrimination by engaging private citizens to help serve as private attorneys general. An absence of such protection would create a chilling effect on employees' willingness to join the fight. The overriding purposes of W.Va.Code, 5-11-9(7)(C), would be wholly defeated if its protection applied only to those individuals who confidently know the technical area of fair employment law and who correctly predict how its doctrine will ultimately be applied in a court of law. Given those unpredictable variables, few rational employees would take much solace in the protection from retaliation offered by such a narrow construction of W.Va.Code, 5-11-9(7)(C). This case illustrates another example supporting the prevailing federal view, that is, in hostile environment harassment cases (sexual, racial, or whatever), the offensive conduct often does not rise to the level of actionability until after there has been a significant accumulation of incidents. Both employees and employers would benefit from a standard that encourages harassed employees to come forward early, well before the ephemeral line of legal liability has been crossed, in order to root out the problem before it grows into an unmanageable and costly crisis. Hanlon, 195 W.Va. at 112, 464 S.E.2d at 754. The law is clear that a reprisal claim can stand on its own without actionable sexual harassment. By this, we mean that in those cases where a plaintiff cannot prove that he/she was the subject of sexual harassment, the law nonetheless permits that individual to prove that his/her employer took improper employment-related action against him/her based solely on the reporting of the alleged sexual harassment. Thus, even if the trial court had properly ruled against Appellant on the sexual harassment claim, she was entitled, assuming the demonstration of a prima facie case of reprisal, to have proceeded to the jury for a determination of whether the Hospital took retaliatory action against her based on her reporting of the alleged sexual harassment. Based on the foregoing, the January 3, 2003, order of the Circuit Court of Cabell County is hereby reversed and this matter is remanded to the lower court for action consistent with the directives contained within this opinion. Reversed and remanded.