Opinion ID: 186437
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Instruction to the Jury

Text: 22 Roebuck argues the district court erred in instructing the jury with regard to the second element of the Faragher-Ellerth affirmative defense, to wit, the employer's burden of proving the plaintiff employee unreasonably failed to take advantage of any preventive or corrective opportunities provided by the employer or to avoid harm otherwise. Ellerth, 524 U.S. at 765, 118 S.Ct. 2257. As the Supreme Court explained, 23 [W]hile proof that an employee failed to fulfill the corresponding obligation of reasonable care to avoid harm is not limited to showing any unreasonable failure to use any complaint procedure provided by the employer, a demonstration of such failure will normally suffice to satisfy the employer's burden under the second element of the defense. 24 Id. In this case, the district court instructed the jury as follows: 25 You must find for the defendant District of Columbia if you find defendant has proved by a preponderance of the evidence first that defendant District of Columbia exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly any sexually harassing behavior, and second, that Roebuck unreasonably failed to take advantage of any preventive or corrective opportunities provided by the District of Columbia to avoid harm. 26 ... 27 [P]roof that plaintiff Roebuck did not follow a complaint procedure provided by defendant District of Columbia as employer will ordinarily be enough to establish that plaintiff Roebuck unreasonably failed to take advantage of a corrective opportunity. 28 Roebuck argues the district court erred when it instructed the jury that the Department could meet its burden with proof that plaintiff Roebuck did not follow a complaint procedure provided by defendant. The Department had not argued that Roebuck failed to follow its complaint procedure. On the contrary, there was no dispute that on January 21, 1998 Roebuck filed with Lieutenant Clark a complaint against Corbett for sexual harassment. The only issue before the jury was that of timeliness—or as Roebuck, quoting Greene v. Dalton, 164 F.3d 671, 675 (D.C.Cir. 1999), succinctly states, whether `a reasonable person in [her] place' would have complained earlier. 29 The court twice instructed the jury, correctly, that the Department had to prove Roebuck unreasonably failed to take advantage of any preventive or corrective opportunit[y]. The only unreasonable failure at issue was Roebuck's failure to complain earlier. The court's further instruction about proof that plaintiff Roebuck did not follow a complaint procedure provided by defendant was therefore surplusage; it would better have been omitted, but we see no reason to think the jury could have been confused by the instruction and somehow concluded that Roebuck never complained at all.