Opinion ID: 3000415
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Stoll’s Alleged Statement to Creasey

Text: Bombaci next argues that JCPG was negligent in remedying Mueller’s and Wampner’s harassment because Stoll reported the harassment to Creasey. Bombaci testified that sometime in 1999, Stoll told her that Stoll told Creasey that “the guys were harassing [Bombaci]” and 2 Bombaci also contends that JCPG had notice of sexual harassment because Creasey witnessed Mueller make sexual jokes from time to time and removed pictures of women in bikinis from one of the presses on which Wampner and Mueller worked. She also notes that another manager, Hagen, learned that Wampner made inappropriate comments to her niece. By themselves, these isolated incidents were not sufficient to notify Creasey that Bombaci was being sexually harassed because they did not come close to creating an actionable hostile work environment. See McPherson v. City of Waukegan, 379 F.3d 430, 441 (7th Cir. 2004) (holding that an employee’s sexual comments, which were made to a group of female workers, were insufficient to notify the employer that the employee might commit serious acts of sexual harassment in the future because the comments did not create an actionable hostile work environment). No. 06-2222 11 that Creasey told Stoll to “go up front, to say something up front.” According to Bombaci, she understood Creasey’s response to mean that Stoll should take the complaint to Jasiek, though neither Stoll nor Bombaci ever did so. Both Stoll and Creasey deny that such a conversation occurred, but on summary judgment, we do not measure the credibility of deposition testimony if it is admissible evidence of an employer’s liability. Paz v. Wauconda Healthcare and Rehabilitation Centre, LLC, 464 F.3d 659, 664-65 (7th Cir. 2006). Here, there is a possibility that Stoll’s alleged statement was an admission by a party-opponent, see Fed. R. Evid. 801(d)(2), and JCPG does not argue otherwise.3 Assuming the statement can be offered for the truth of the matter asserted, a jury reasonably could find that JCPG’s response to Stoll’s complaint was negligent. JCPG appointed Creasey as one of several individuals to whom employees should bring complaints of sexual harassment, and Creasey knew that Mueller had made inappropriate sexual comments in the past. One could conclude that Creasey, aware of a significant risk of sexual harassment in the workplace, had a duty—minimally burdensome—to contact Bombaci or at least make sure that another supervisor did so. See Young, 123 F.3d at 675. Instead, Creasey allegedly passed off this important responsibility to Stoll, a lower-level worker with no authority to remedy sexual harassment, and did not speak with Bombaci or Jasiek to make sure that the problem was being addressed. 3 We decline to resolve definitively whether the statement is hearsay because it is a fact-based issue that depends on whether Stoll made the statements within the scope of her authority as an agent for JCPG. See Jack B. Weinstein & Margaret A. Berger, Weinstein’s Federal Evidence § 801.33[1] (Joseph M. McLaughlin ed., 2d ed. 2006). 12 No. 06-2222 Though we have held on several occasions that an employer reasonably can expect a victim of sexual harassment to make some minimal effort to follow up on an initial complaint when the employer requests her to do so, see, e.g., Jackson v. County of Racine, 474 F.3d 493, 502 (7th Cir. 2007) (holding that an employer acts reasonably where it attempts to follow up with complainants, but complainants do not respond), we have never held that an employer acts reasonably where a supervisor receives a credible complaint of sexual harassment and no effort is made to contact the alleged victim. Under these facts, a jury reasonably could find that JCPG acted negligently.