Opinion ID: 2994424
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Vicarious Liability and the Ellerth/Faragher

Text: Affirmative Defense The district court found that Johnson was sexually harassed. As this finding was not clearly erroneous and in any event the VA has not cross-appealed from it, we focus on the standards of vicarious liability, which is the focus of the parties’ arguments on appeal. The VA does argue that if this court reverses the district court’s judgment on the Ellerth/Faragher defense, this court should remand for a new trial on the finding of sexual harassment. According to the VA, the district court inexplicably ignored evidence that Johnson and Williams were--at least at the start-- involved in a consensual relationship. A new trial, however, is unnecessary, even if we could give this relief without a cross-appeal. Whether or not the initial sexual relationship was consensual, the VA’s proffered evidence does not refute the district court’s findings concerning Williams’s behavior after the relationship dissolved. In Ellerth and Faragher, the Supreme Court considered an employer’s vicarious liability for the sexually harassing conduct of its supervisory staff. An employer is subject to vicarious liability to a victimized employee for an actionable hostile work environment created by a supervisor with immediate (or successively higher) authority over the employee. Ellerth, 524 U.S. at 765; Faragher, 524 U.S. at 807. Vicarious liability automatically applies when the harassing supervisor is either (1) indisputably within that class of an employer organization’s officials who may be treated as the organization’s proxy, Faragher, 524 U.S. at 789, or (2) when the supervisor’s harassment culminates in a tangible employment action, such as discharge, demotion, or undesirable reassignment. Id. at 808. Absent either of these situations, however, an employer may avoid vicarious liability by showing (a) that the employer exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly any sexually harassing behavior, and (b) that 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. Johnson argues that the VA was not entitled to the affirmative defense because (1) Williams was an employer for the purposes of Title VII-- that is, the VA’s proxy or alter-ego, and in any event (2) she suffered a tangible employment action as a result of her harassment. Johnson argues that Williams was, for Title VII purposes, her employer or the VA’s alter-ego, and, as such, his actions are automatically attributable to the VA. Faragher suggests that the following officials may be treated as an employer’s proxy: a president, owner, proprietor, partner, corporate officer, or supervisor hold[ing] a sufficiently high position in the management hierarchy of the company for his actions to be imputed automatically to the employer. 524 U.S. at 789-90 (citing with approval Torres v. Pisano, 116 F.3d 625, 634-35 & n.11 (2d Cir. 1997)). Williams was not such a person. Although Williams had an important title, Chief of Police, he had no less than two supervisors (Jones and his supervisor, Cummings) within the hospital and no doubt others within the VA’s bureaucracy. As such, he was not a high- level manager whose actions spoke for the VA. See Harrison v. Eddy Potash, Inc., 158 F.3d 1371, 1376 (10th Cir. 1998). If automatic vicarious liability is warranted for Williams, there would be little or nothing left of the affirmative defense the Supreme Court took care to fashion in Ellerth and Faragher. Williams was, in fact, a rather low-level supervisor. He was not the only person to whom Johnson reported, as she worked for a number of people. Outside of signing off on Johnson’s performance appraisals, Williams had no ability to change the terms and conditions of Johnson’s employment. The VA had systems in place to check the behavior of its low-level supervisors like Williams: it disseminated its sexual harassment policy and had grievance procedures through which an employee could make a complaint without having to go through the offending supervisor. See Montero v. Agco Corp., 192 F.3d 856, 864 (9th Cir. 1999). Her case therefore turns on the question whether the district court correctly concluded that the VA had met the requirements of its affirmative defense. In one final effort to avoid this inquiry, Johnson argues that hers is a case in which a tangible employment action occurred--her discharge--and thus that the affirmative defense is not available to the VA. She is certainly correct that being discharged is a tangible employment action. See Silk v. City of Chicago, 194 F.3d 788, 804 & n.16 (7th Cir. 1999). However, Johnson’s termination did not result from Williams’s harassment in the way Ellerth and Faragher contemplate. An employer is vicariously liable for tangible employment actions undertaken by the harassing supervisor. Faragher, 524 U.S. at 808 (No affirmative defense is available [ ] when the supervisor’s harassment culminates in a tangible employment action.) (emphasis added). When a supervisor takes a tangible employment action--in contrast to harassment that does not involve such a tangible action--there is assurance the injury could not have been inflicted absent the agency relation and thus the supervisor’s action becomes for Title VII purposes the act of the employer. Ellerth, 524 U.S. at 761-62. Williams’s actions created a hostile working environment for Johnson, but he himself did not use his supervisory authority to get her fired. To the contrary, Williams reported Johnson’s assault to his higher-ups in the VA hospital administration, who in turn investigated his complaint and resolved it through the appropriate administrative channels. Although his report of her actions resulted in her being fired, he was not her supervisor at the time, he played no role in the decision to fire Johnson, and the decision to fire her was made after his report of Johnson’s assault was considered in the proper administrative channels. See Silk, 194 F.3d at 806 & n.17 (holding employer not vicariously liable for tangible employment action when supervisor submitted complaint regarding plaintiff-employee’s violation of regulations and employment action was taken after full investigation and hearing on the issue). We therefore hold that the district court correctly found that the VA could claim the affirmative defense and consequently move on to determine whether the court applied the defense correctly. Johnson argues that even if the VA was entitled in principle to the Ellerth/Faragher affirmative defense, it did not meet its burden of proof. That burden requires the employer to establish two points, not just one. Given the fact that our review of the district court’s findings here is only for clear error, we see nothing reversible in its finding that the VA exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly any sexually harassing behavior, which is the first part of the defense. The district court found that the VA had an established harassment policy. Faragher, 524 U.S. at 807; Caridad v. Metro-North Commuter R.R., 191 F.3d 283, 295 (2d Cir. 1999) (Although not necessarily dispositive, the existence of an anti-harassment policy with complaint procedures is an important consideration in determining whether the employer has satisfied the first prong of [the affirmative] defense.). When Johnson finally reported the full extent of the harassment to Cummings and the agency EEO staff, the VA responded adequately: it ordered an investigation and it immediately separated Johnson and Williams. Cummings even refused to drop the investigation in the face of Johnson’s request that she do so. Johnson does not point to anything to suggest these findings are clearly erroneous. (In her motion for reconsideration before the district court, Johnson made the argument that the harassment was so pervasive that the VA should have discovered it and taken action even before her complaints. Johnson failed to make this argument at trial, however, so the district court deemed it waived. That is enough for us to disregard it as well.) The problem with the district court’s decision does not lie, however, in its factual findings with respect to the first element of the defense. It lies in the absence of the court’s consideration of element 2, which requires a finding about whether the plaintiff employee unreasonably failed to take advantage of any protective or corrective opportunities provided by the employer or to avoid harm otherwise. In other words, it is the VA’s burden to show that Johnson acted unreasonably. The district court made no findings at all about the reasonableness of Johnson’s failure to take advantage of any preventive or corrective opportunities the VA provided. Even though the district court’s failure to state explicitly what it was doing would not require a remand if the court’s factual findings were sufficient for us to draw our own legal conclusions, see Brooms v. Regal Tube Co., 881 F.2d 412, 420 (7th Cir. 1989), we do not find this to be such a case. On this record, a trier of fact could rationally come to either conclusion on the second element: that Johnson behaved reasonably, or that she did not. The VA stressed the fact that it took Johnson nearly a year to report the harassment, which is surely an element in its favor. But, as the district court itself acknowledged, her failure to do so may have stemmed from Williams’s threats and intimidation, which convinced Johnson (still at that point a probationary employee) that to take any action would come at the price of her job. Such a reaction may not be unreasonable. Cf. Caridad, 191 F.3d at 295 (finding employee’s failure to report harassment unreasonable where it was based on fear of her co-workers’ reaction). There was evidence that Williams threatened Johnson, verbally abused her, and even threw mail in her face. A trier of fact could find that Johnson was under severe emotional and psychological stress as a result of the harassment. Her co-workers observed that she appeared fearful and introverted when she was working for Williams; at one point, when Williams had her backed into a corner, she yelled I’m going to scream! Eventually, she consulted a therapist to help her through the hallucinations, substance abuse, and depression she suffered. This presents a factual issue on the affirmative defense that was never resolved by the district court, and that cannot be resolved by this court on appeal. It is more than a loose end, as its resolution will be determinative of the VA’s liability and the outcome of Johnson’s case. We therefore conclude that the proper course is to remand for further proceedings on this point.