Opinion ID: 3011207
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Tangible Adverse Employment Action

Text: The Supreme Court has defined a tangible employment action as a significant change in employment status, such as hiring, firing, failing to promote, reassignment with significantly different responsibilities, or a decision causing a significant change in benefits. Ellerth, 118 S. Ct. at 2268. According to Durham, none of the behavior described by Evans constitutes a tangible adverse employment action, and thus it is entitled to prevail on its affirmative defense. Forcing Evans to vacate her office is not tangible, Durham posits, because no other agent had a private office, and because she kept the office until she resigned. We disagree. First, the District Court found, and Durham does not dispute, that a secretary and a private office were specific, negotiated conditions of Evans's move to Durham/Peoples. Evans also testified that, given the way she dealt with her accounts, a secretary was necessary to enable her to work successfully. Durham entirely ignores the loss of Evans's secretary, who was paid $20,000 per year--hardly a small sum. Given Evans's need for office _________________________________________________________________ natural category, balancing the employer's right to be free from automatic liability against employees' right to a workplace that discourages and redresses harassment. See Faragher, 118 S. Ct. at 2291. Thus, for actionable harassment that occurs without any tangible employment action, the aided by the agency relation test may be tantamount to the failure of the employer's affirmative defense, which forms the contours of the liability test. The affirmative defense remains a defense and not an element of the plaintiff's case because the burdens of production and proof remain at all times on the employer, but the liability test as a whole is expressly designed to encourage effective anti- harassment policies. 8. There are other bases for liability that are not relevant to our