Opinion ID: 2582271
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Evidence Presented by Mahan Raises a Genuine Issue of Material Fact.

Text: Mahan's argument is that both Harris and Gobaleza sexually harassed her while she was at Badami. According to Mahan's responses to interrogatories, Gobaleza would come into the restroom when Mahan was cleaning and use the urinal in front of her. Both Gobaleza and Harris came into her room at night to the point where [she] had to prop a chair against the door, because [she] wasn't getting enough rest at night. Each man asked Mahan to have sex with him and when Mahan's supervisor, Doug Schneider, observed Gobaleza's conduct, he said that's considered sexual harassment and told Gobaleza to leave Mahan alone. Schneider told Mahan she was a good employee, the best one they had. When Mahan was rehired to work for Arctic at the Alpine camp, she claims that Gobaleza continued the harassment and rubbed his hand down by [her] bra strap, when he went to give a hug. Mahan also believed that at Alpine, Harris evidenced residual resentment of her action in reporting him for the sexual harassment at Badami. According to Mahan's deposition testimony, submitted in support of her opposition to the motion for summary judgment, when Harris arrived at Alpine, he piled work on [Mahan's] shoulders every time, extra stuff, that the other housekeepers didn't have to do. Mahan also testified that at Alpine, she wasn't assigned to do laundry; [she] was assigned to do the bedrooms and the bathrooms and stuff. She insisted that she was supposed to make beds, do bathrooms, and only the laundry that was in the bedrooms.... Not work ... in the laundry room. She maintained: I did the duties of [the] position I was hired for. I was not hired to work in the laundry room. She claims that she wasn't treated like the other housekeepers, and was given a tremendous amount of extra work by Harris. She also claims that Harris was [at Alpine] the day [she] was fired from [her] job up there. Thus, the court's assertion that there are facially legitimate, non-retaliatory reasons for her termination because the rash on Mahan's arms precluded her from doing the work she had been told to do in the laundry [3] does not give Mahan the benefit of her testimony that she was not assigned to work in the laundry and that she was being given inappropriate duties by Harris due to her protected activity of resisting his sexual advances. Moreover, although Arctic offered evidence that it fired Mahan due to her inability to perform laundry duties, Mahan's evidence that she was not hired to do laundry and that she was given extra duties as retaliation for her earlier claims of harassment were more than `unsupported assumptions and speculation.' [4] Finally, although the court concludes that there is no strong chronological connection between Mahan's firing in March 2000 and the protected conduct in 1999 of resisting the sexual advances of Gobaleza and Harris at Badami, Mahan stated that sexual harassment occurred at Alpine as well as Badami. In her answers to interrogatories, she stated that Mr. Harris asked Ms. Mahan to have sex with him at Alpine and Badami on repeated occasions during her tenure. (Emphasis added.) She also responded that Harris made the following comment to me at Alpine[:] `You sure have a cute ass. I wish I could have a piece of that.' She claimed that Gobaleza inappropriately rubbed his hand down her bra strap when he gave her a hug at Alpine. Her claim of sexual harassment at Alpine thus establishes a chronological connection between her firing and the protected conduct.