Opinion ID: 2582271
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Mahan's Hostile Environment Claim Should Be Permitted To Proceed.

Text: Because Mahan has brought forth sufficient evidence to prevent summary judgment on her claim of retaliatory discharge, she should also be permitted to proceed with her hostile environment claim. We have held that certain patterns of discriminatory acts against the same employee can preserve a claim as timely that might otherwise be barred by the statute of limitations. [20] As the court correctly notes, a plaintiff seeking to preserve otherwise-barred claims must first demonstrate that some discriminatory act occurred within the limitations period [and] ... must then show that the timely filed claimbased upon this act within the limitation periodis closely related to the otherwise time-barred claims. [21] To determine whether the claims are sufficiently related, we look to three primary characteristics of the violations: subject matter, temporal proximity, and permanence, [22] with permanence being the most important of the three. [23] A `permanent' violation triggers a reasonable person's awareness of the alleged discrimination and the need to assert [his or] her rights. [24] Federal case law, although not entirely clear on this point, does not appear to preclude a claim of retaliatory termination from reviving a hostile environment claim. [25] Because Mahan does allege a hostile environment, the court should apply the three factors for determining whether the continuing violations doctrine revives her sexual harassment claims. [26] If Mahan was given work that she was physically unable to do in retaliation for her complaints about sexual harassment, as the evidence suggests, her termination for inability to do that work is clearly related to the previous incidents of sexual harassment. Similarly, given the evidence that sexual harassment occurred at the second camp as well as the first, which implies that the alleged harassment happened within days of her termination, the harassment and termination were proximate in time. Finally, her termination was permanent, in that it would trigger[] a reasonable person's awareness of the alleged discrimination and [of] the need to assert [his or] her rights. [27] I therefore believe that, based on the evidence that Mahan has presented, she should be permitted to proceed with her hostile environment claim as well as her wrongful termination claim.