Court Opinion

ID: 9572045
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:37:51.869066+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:31:25.463015
License: Public Domain

PAGE, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. While I agree -with the court’s conclusion that the Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA) prohibits sexual harassment between individuals of the same sex, I do not believe that in amending the MHRA to specifically prohibit sexual harassment the legislature intended to make actionable all “rude and crude” conduct that takes place in the workplace between people of the same sex. In dissenting, I do not mean to suggest that Koehnen’s conduct was not offensive and disgusting or that employers should either permit or be required to tolerate such conduct in the workplace. The conduct alleged is both rude and crude and employers have a right to prohibit it. However, that is not the same as saying that the conduct is prohibited by the MHRA.
Minnesota Statutes § 363.03, subdivision 1, provides that:
Except when based on a bona fide occupational qualification, it is an unfair employment practice:
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(2) For an employer, because of * * * sex
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(e) to discriminate against a person with respect to hiring, tenure, compensation, terms, upgrading, conditions, facilities, or privileges of employment.
(Emphasis added.) Minnesota Statutes section 363.01, subdivision 14, in defining the term “discriminate,” states that “for purposes of discrimination based on sex, it includes sexual harassment.” (Emphasis added.) Subdivision 41 of section 363.01 then *425defines “sexual harassment as including “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, sexually motivated physical contact or other verbal or physical conduct or communication of a sexual nature * *
This statutory framework came about as a result of the legislature’s codification of this court’s holding in Continental Can Co., Inc. v. State, 297 N.W.2d 241 (Minn.1980).1 In 1980, before sexual harassment was explicitly prohibited by the MHRA, this court held that sexual harassment was actionable under the MHRA because it was a form of gender discrimination. Id. at 249. At that time, the MHRA only prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex. In Continental Can, we stated that one of the purposes of the MHRA was “to rid the workplace of disparate treatment of female employees merely because they are female.” Id. at 248. We further stated that, “[w]hen sexual harassment is directed at female employees because of their womanhood, female employees are faced with a working environment different from the working environment faced by male employees.” Id. Thus, the law of sexual harassment, as it was initially developed by the courts, was designed to remove barriers to equality based on one’s gender. See Meritor Savings Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 66-67, 106 S.Ct. 2399, 2405-06, 91 L.Ed.2d 49 (1986). Given the development of Minnesota’s law of sexual harassment, it is clear that a necessary predicate to establishing a claim of sexual harassment is establishing that the conduct alleged to constitute the sexual harassment occurred “because of sex.”
The court’s interpretation of the MHRA reads the “because of sex” requirement out of the statute and extends the MHRA to cover claims of workplace harassment inconsistent with the statute’s underlying purposes as articulated in Continental Can. Significantly, the legislature, without modification, adopted this court’s interpretation of the MHRA in Continental Can. Had the legislature intended to eliminate the “because of sex” requirement for establishing claims of sexual harassment under the MHRA, it could easily have done so but did not.2
The court’s opinion raises the concern that if “because of sex” is not read out of the statute, an absurd result would follow because two classes of employees would be left unprotected: “employees who work in a single-gender workplace and employees who work with an ‘equal opportunity harasser,’ who harasses sexually both males and females.” Ante at 423. First, and most important, employees who fall into these two categories are not left unprotected. In order to establish an actionable claim, they need only show that the alleged harassment occurred “because of sex.” This is the same test that women making claims of sexual harassment against men have had to meet since the law of sexual harassment was developed. Moreover, the legislature could reasonably decide that employees who do not face barriers to equality because of their sex do not need protection under the statute. Such a decision is not absurd.
Finally, in reading the “because of sex” requirement out of the statute, the court claims “that the apparent requirement that a plaintiff prove both that the complained-of behavior was ‘because of sex’ and also that it met the requirements of Minn.Stat. § 363.01, subd. 41” was a mere “drafting anomaly.” Ante at 423. While, I suppose, theoretically that is a possibility, it is certainly not the only possibility, nor even the most likely. Our rules of statutory construction provide that, “[w]hen the words of a law in their application to an existing situation are clear and free from all ambiguity, the letter of the law shall not be disregarded under the pretext of pursing the spirit.” Minn.Stat. § 645.16 (1996). Here, the statutory provisions in question are clear and free from all ambiguity. In order for conduct to constitute sexual harassment, it must first be “because of sex.” It is not for this court to read into the MHRA that which the legislature did not provide, nor is it the court’s role to read
*426out of the MHRA that which the legislature did provide.
I see the court’s decision today as generating a flood of sexual harassment claims3 from a class of people who have never faced barriers to gender equality in the workplace, with the ultimate result being less protection for those women and men who have faced such barriers and whom the legislature clearly intended to protect.
Therefore, I dissent.

. In 1982, the MHRA was amended to specifically prohibit sexual harassment. Act of March 23, 1982, ch. 619, §§ 2 and 3, 1982 Minn. Laws 1508, 1511.

. While the court’s decision may be politically correct, I find the court’s analysis leading to the conclusion that "because of sex" should be read out of the statute legally flawed.

. To paraphrase Justice Tomljanovich from her concurring opinion in Bilal v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 537 N.W.2d 614, 620 (Minn.1995), the courts simply cannot be the arbiter of all "rude and crude” conduct.