Opinion ID: 855991
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Chief Hankla’s liability under the AHRA

Text: The employees argue that AS 18.80.270 allows individual employees to be liable for hostile work environment sexual discrimination. We disagree. Subsection .270 creates liability for persons who willfully engage in “an unlawful discriminatory practice prohibited by this chapter.” The statute prohibits “persons” from committing a variety of acts,53 but prohibits employment discrimination only when committed by “an employer.”54 Subsection .300(5) defines an employer as “a person, including the state and a political subdivision of the state, who has one or more employees in the state.” Chief Hankla plainly does not meet this definition. We will not read subsection .270 as 53 AS 18.80.270; AS 18.80.220(a)(6). 54 AS 18.80.220(a)(1). -24­ 6765 providing grounds to find a person who is not an employer liable for employment discrimination. The statute also does not evince any intention to create employee liability for hostile work environment sexual harassment. Subsection .200 provides that “it is the policy of the state and the purpose of this chapter to eliminate and prevent discrimination in employment.” To effectuate this purpose, the AHRA prohibits certain forms of discrimination by employers, employment agencies, and unions,55 and prohibits individual discrimination in the form of printing, publishing, broadcasting, or otherwise circulating material that impermissibly discriminates with regard to prospective employment.56 In drafting the statute, the legislature contemplated personal liability for certain acts and employer liability for others.57 Had the legislature wanted to establish personal liability for sexually inappropriate workplace behavior, as alleged against Chief Hankla, the legislature could have done so. Instead, the legislature left employees with common law remedies against harassing employees. We therefore affirm the entry of summary judgment dismissing Welsh’s, Mills’s, and McLaughlin’s AHRA claims against Chief Hankla. We note too that an employee may not be liable under the AHRA for aiding and abetting an employer when the discriminating employee’s own conduct is what gives rise to the employer’s liability. In Ellison v. Plumbers & Steam Fitters Union Local 375, we explained that under AS 18.80.260 “aiding and abetting liability occurs when the actor ‘knows that the other’s conduct constitutes a breach of duty and gives substantial 55 See AS 18.80.220(a)(1)-(5). 56 See AS 18.80.220(a)(6). 57 Compare AS 18.80.220(a)(6), with AS 18.80.220(a)(1), (3)-(5). -25­ 6765 assistance or encouragement to the other.’ ”58 We do not believe the legislature intended to use the aiding and abetting provision to hold employees directly liable for their discrimination. Given the otherwise clear terms of the statute, we will not assume that on the critically important issue of individual liability the legislature decided not to use similarly clear language. We decline to hold that the legislature “intended to accomplish a result so significant by a method so abstruse.”59