Opinion ID: 848648
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: individual agent liability under the cra

Text: The CRA prohibits an employer from discriminating on account of sex, which includes sexual harassment. MCL 37.2202(1)(a); MCL 37.2103(i) (Discrimination because of sex includes sexual harassment.). As previously set forth, the statute expressly defines an employer as a person, which is defined under MCL 37.2103(g) to include a corporation, and also states that an employer includes an agent of that person. MCL 37.2201(a). [16] This statutory language uncontroversially means that Ford Motor Company is an employer under the CRA. What is contested is whether an agent of the corporation is also subject to individual liability. Bennett and Ford have argued that the statutory definition of employer, which includes an agent of that person, should not be read as providing individual liability because (1) inclusion of the term agent in the statutory definition of employer operates solely to confer vicarious liability on the employer, (2) federal courts of appeals have all held that Title VII-the analogous federal sexual discrimination statute with its similar definition of employer-does not allow individual liability, and (3) the amendment history of our CRA suggests a different intention on the part of the Legislature. Regarding the first of these arguments, that this statute should not be read to expand the class of potential defendants to include agents, defendants assert that Chambers, supra at 310, 614 N.W.2d 910, supports this narrowing conclusion because it held that the inclusion of an agent within the definition of an employer in MCL 37.2201(a) served to confer vicarious liability on the agent's employer. We disagree with this analysis. While Chambers held that this language establishes vicarious liability, our discussion did not limit it to that function. The reason is that, when a statute says employer means a person who has 1 or more employees, and includes an agent of that person,  it must, if the words are going to be read sensibly, mean that the Legislature intended to make the agent tantamount to the employer so that the agent unmistakably is also subject to suit along with the employer. (Emphasis added.) Indeed, when we said in Chambers, supra at 320, 614 N.W.2d 910, that categorizing a given pattern of misconduct allows the Court to determine whether the sexual harasser's employer, in addition to the sexual harasser himself, is to be held responsible for the misconduct, we believe we said as much. (Emphasis in original.) Accordingly, we reject the argument that including agent within the definition of employer serves only to provide vicarious liability for the agent's employer and we conclude that it also serves to create individual liability for an employer's agent. [17] With respect to defendants' second argument, which is effectively that we should piggyback on the rationale federal courts have used with Title VII, [18] defendants refer us to numerous federal decisions that, on the basis of the policy and object of Title VII rather than what the statute actually says, have read Title VII to preclude individual liability. [19] This Court has been clear that the policy behind a statute cannot prevail over what the text actually says. The text must prevail. In fact, in Chambers, when an invitation to follow policy over text was presented with regard to the CRA, we said: We are many times guided in our interpretation of the Michigan Civil Rights Act by federal court interpretations of its counterpart federal statute. However, we have generally been careful to make it clear that we are not compelled to follow those federal interpretations. Instead, our primary obligation when interpreting Michigan law is always to ascertain and give effect to the intent of the Legislature, ... `as gathered from the act itself.' . . . [W]e cannot defer to federal interpretations if doing so would nullify a portion of the Legislature's enactment. [ Chambers, supra at 313-314, 614 N.W.2d 910 (citations omitted).] As in Chambers, we again decline to follow the tendered policy over text federal court interpretations of Title VII for the same reason: it would be contrary to the very wording of our CRA. Because MCL 37.2201(a) provides that an employer includes an agent of the employer, an agent can be held individually liable under the CRA. [20] Moreover, several federal courts in Michigan have anticipated our holding that, under our CRA, individual agent liability exists even if it did not exist under Title VII. This can be seen in Hall v. State Farm Ins. Co., 18 F.Supp.2d 751, 764 (E.D.Mich., 1998), in which the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan explained: ELCRA [Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act] covers any employer who has 1 or more employees. Mich. Comp. Laws § 37.2201(a). Thus, ELCRA undeniably envisions placing liability on individuals, such as two-member business entities where one person is the principal and the other person serves as the employee. Moreover, ELCRA's remedy provision authorizes person[s] alleging a violation of this act [to] bring a civil action for appropriate injunctive relief or damages, or both, with damages being awarded for an injury or loss caused by each violation of this act, including reasonable attorney's fees. Mich. Comp. Laws §§ 37.2801(1), (3). These ELCRA remedies further distinguish it from Title VII because damages can be obtained from individuals as well as employers. Similarly, another judge of the same federal district court also questioned the Jager Court's conclusion that individual liability did not exist under Michigan's CRA, stating that the language includes an agent of that employer, could, under principles of strict statutory construction, well be read as extending liability to individuals. Otherwise, this phrase is merely surplusage, as it adds nothing to the definitional scope of employer, which itself defines the term employer as a person. [ United States v. Wayne Co. Comm. College Dist., 242 F.Supp.2d 497, 507 n. 11 (E.D.Mich., 2003).] [21] We conclude, then, that while federal courts have the power to construe Title VII as they will, that does not compel us to follow them, especially if the language being construed is at loggerheads with the purported policy. With respect to the third argument regarding the amendment history of our CRA, defendants assert that it precludes a finding of individual liability. They advance this by positing that when the CRA was first enacted in 1976, it defined employer to mean a person who has 4 or more employees, and includes an agent of that person. 1976 PA 453. This meant, as defendants read it, that an agent could not be individually liable because the CRA did not apply at all unless there were at least four employees. With that predicate of no agent liability under the 1976 act understood, they then turn to the amended statute, which reflects the 1980 amendment [22] that broadened the protection of the CRA by sweeping under its aegis companies with only one employee, but left unchanged the definition of employer to include an agent, and argue that even though the old theory of nonliability of agents cannot be sustained under the new language, we should read it in anyway. This we cannot do. The Legislature is held to what it said. It is not for us to rework the statute. Our duty is to interpret the statute as written. The binding nature of this responsibility was reiterated by this Court recently in Lansing Mayor v. Pub. Service Comm., 470 Mich. 154, 161, 680 N.W.2d 840 (2004), in which we said: Our task, under the Constitution, is the important, but yet limited, duty to read and interpret what the Legislature has actually made the law. We have observed many times in the past that our Legislature is free to make policy choices that, especially in controversial matters, some observers will inevitably think unwise. This dispute over the wisdom of a law, however, cannot give warrant to a court to overrule the people's Legislature. Thus, what this comes down to is that perhaps the Legislature's policy choice can be debated, but the judiciary is not the constitutional venue for such a debate. The Legislature is the proper venue. It is to that body that the defendants should make their argument. Accordingly, we reject the claim that the amendment history of our CRA precludes a finding of individual liability where the actual wording of the statute as currently written unambiguously provides that an agent may be individually liable. [23] Because we find that (1) inclusion of an agent within the definition of the word employer is not limited to establishing vicarious liability for the agent's employer, but in fact means agents are considered employers, (2) federal decisions construing Title VII should not be followed because it would lead to a result contrary to the text of our CRA, and (3) the amendment history of the CRA does not preclude a finding of individual liability, we conclude that liability under our CRA applies to an agent who sexually harasses an employee in the workplace.