Court Opinion

ID: 9721667
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:05:00.047642+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:28.051871
License: Public Domain

Lynch, J.
(dissenting in part, with whom Nolan and O’Con-nor, JJ., join). I cannot join in parts three and four of the *171opinion. In an opinion notably devoid of precedential support the court concludes that College-Town is vicariously liable for the conduct of Broad. In so doing it relegates the strong body of contrary Federal precedent to a footnote, and ignores traditional common law principles for imposing liability upon an employer for the acts of its employee.
In concluding that vicarious liability is appropriate in this case, the court follows neither the Court of Appeals in Henson v. Dundee, 682 F.2d 897 (11th Cir. 1982), nor the United States Supreme Court in Meritor Sav. Bank, FSB, v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57 (1986).
In Henson, the Court of Appeals ruled that, “[wjhere, as here, the plaintiff seeks to hold the employer responsible for the hostile environment created by the plaintiff’s supervisor or coworker, she must show that the employer knew or should have known of the harassment in question and failed to take prompt remedial action. See Bundy v. Jackson, 641 F.2d [934] 943 & n.8; Vinson v. Taylor, 23 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) at 41-42” (footnote omitted). Henson, supra at 905. This is the rule applied by the overwhelming number of Federal courts that have recognized the issue,1 including the District Court decision that was the progenitor of Meritor, Vinson v. Taylor, 23 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. 37 (BNA 1980). See, e.g., Moylan v. Maries County, 792 F.2d 746, 750 (8th Cir. 1986); Craig v. Y & Y Snacks, Inc., 721 F.2d 77 (3d Cir. 1983); Phillips v. Smalley Maintenance Servs., Inc., 711 F.2d 1524 (11th Cir. 1983); Katz v. Dole, 709 F.2d 251, 255 (4th Cir. 1983); Tompkins v. Public Serv. Elec. & Gas Co., 568 F.2d 1044, 1048 (3d Cir. 1977); Egger v. Local 276, Plumbers Union, 644 F. Supp. 795, 801-802 (D. Mass. 1986) (citing Meritor Sav. Bank, FSB, v. Vinson, supra); Benton v. Kroger Co., 640 F. Supp. 1317, 1322 (S.D. Tex. 1986); Bowen v. Valley Camp of Utah, Inc., 639 F. Supp. 1199, 1203-1204 (D. Utah 1986) (same); Volk v. Coler, 638 F. Supp. 1555 (C.D. Ill. *1721986) (same); Priest v. Rotary, 634 F. Supp. 571, 582 (N.D. Cal. 1986); Mays v. Williamson & Sons, Janitorial Servs., Inc., 591 F. Supp. 1518 (E.D. Ark. 1984), aff’d. 775 F.2d 258 (8th Cir. 1985); Zabkowicz v. West Bend Co., 589 F. Supp. 780, 784-785 (E.D. Wisc. 1984); Cummings v. Walsh Constr. Co., 561 F. Supp. 872, 878 (S.D. Ga. 1983); Coley v. Consolidated Rail Corp., 561 F. Supp. 645, 650 (E.D. Mich. 1982); Ferguson v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 560 F. Supp. 1172, 1198-1199 (D. Del. 1983). Contra Mitchell v. OsAir, Inc., 629 F. Supp. 636, 641 (N.D. Ohio 1986) (relying on United States Court of Appeals decision in Vinson v. Taylor, 753 F.2d 141 (D.C. Cir. 1985); Jeppsen v. Wunnicke, 611 F. Supp. 78, 80-83 (D. Alaska 1985) (same). See also Crimm v. Missouri Pac. Ry., 750 F.2d 703, 710 (8th Cir. 1984) (acknowledging respondeat superior requirement articulated in Henson); Vermett v. Hough, 627 F. Supp. 587, 606-607 (W.D. Mich. 1986) (same). In a singular departure from this general rule the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in an opinion also significantly lacking in precedential support, held that any discriminatory activity by a supervisor is attributable to the employer. Vinson v. Taylor, 753 F.2d 141 (D.C. Cir. 1985). In reviewing that decision, however, the United States Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeals was wrong in entirely disregarding agency principles and in imposing absolute liability on employers for the acts of their supervisors regardless of the circumstances of a particular case. The Supreme Court cited with approval the Restatement (Second) of Agency §§ 219-237 (1958), and noted that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission believes “that when a sexual harassment claim rests exclusively on a ‘hostile environment’ theory, ... the usual basis for a finding of agency will often disappear.” Meritor, supra at 77-78. The grievance in Meritor involved a sexually harassing work environment claim (hostile environment), which was the same as the basis for the commission’s finding of sexual harassment here. The underlying facts of the dispute in Meritor are significant. The plaintiff’s employment and rapid advancement were based on merit and did not depend on the sexual activity upon which she based her *173complaint. During the period of her employment and rapid promotion, she had a voluntary, intimate sexual relationship with a supervisor which, among other things, involved forty or fifty instances of sexual relations over two years. This sexual activity stopped about one year prior to the incident which brought about her complaint. She was discharged for taking six weeks of unauthorized sick leave for a vaguely described condition. She was still on sick leave when the discharge occurred. She did not report her claim of sexual harassment to anyone prior to her discharge, nor did any other female employee file a complaint or grievance about the supervisor.
On these facts, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit would have imposed liability on her employer under the same rule indorsed by the court here. The Supreme Court rejected that rule, however, and held that its application by the Court of Appeals was error. Although unwilling to lay down a definitive rule on employer liability because of the abstract quality of that case, the Supreme Court made clear that agency principles should provide guidance in determining employers’ liability, but indicated that exceptions would be appropriate, such as where the conduct was so pervasive and so long continuing that the employer must have known about it or perhaps where no reasonable avenue of complaint was available.
The court’s opinion therefore ignores traditional common law concepts and cavalierly disposes of the significant contrary precedent without serious analysis. This, we are told, is because the result is mandated by the clear intent of the Legislature. If so, it is an intent nowhere expressed in the statute itself nor in any legislative history of which the reader is made aware. On so sterile a showing I am unable to discern a legislative intent that common law principles and Federal precedent be avoided in order to find an employer liable for unauthorized conduct not specifically forbidden by the statute. In so doing, the court applies a concept of discrimination recognized in the Federal decisions that the court conveniently ignores which, while condemning the conduct, would mandate a contrary re-*174suit. On the contrary, I find no suggestion that the Legislature intended to impose liability on an employer because a supervisor created a “sexually charged atmosphere” that was unrelated to gain or loss of employment or economic benefits, where the conduct was contrary to the employer’s policy, of no benefit to the employer, and with no showing that the employer knew or should have known about the conduct. In such cases, I would find liability only where accepted agency principles would attribute the supervisor’s conduct to the employer.
Neither would I impose liability in this case because of the nature of the employer’s investigation of the employee’s complaints. The findings establish that the employer acted promptly on the plaintiff’s complaints; action was commenced on the next business day. The investigation included those employees who would have been expected to have knowledge of the incidents. Even though no corroboration of the employee’s complaints was divulged, the employer took remedial action by allowing the plaintiff to change her work area, and thereafter she told her employer everything was fine. Although the commission is critical of the employer’s investigation, there was no corroboration of the employee’s complaints on the record before it or other evidence not discovered by the employer. The employer was, therefore, faced with the problem of resolving a credibility contest between a recently hired employee and a comparatively senior supervisor. Nevertheless, the employer took action which could not fairly be termed an unreasonable response to the allegations. An employer should not have liability imposed on it for failing to conduct an investigation that would have been more in accordance with a lawyer’s understanding of due process but which would have disclosed no additional facts and which could not have been expected to produce any different remedial action.
Although I find support in the record for the commission’s belated findings of retaliatory discharge, I would reverse because the damages imposed would not be appropriate on that aspect of the case alone. I would not reach the question of the employee’s entitlement to damages for emotional distress.

The Federal decisions are not in disarray as the court contends, but in general agreement except for the Court of Appeals decision in Vinson v. Taylor, which is discussed in detail in the text.