Court Opinion

ID: 9884302
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 02:52:00.305815+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:37.485346
License: Public Domain

OPINION AND DISSENT15
GILDEA, Justice.
Appellant Judy Frieler claims that her former employer — Carlson Marketing Group, Inc. (CMG) — is liable for both hostile environment harassment under the Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA) and common law assault and battery. I conclude that summary judgment was properly entered in favor of CMG on both claims.
I.
We are first asked to address employer liability for hostile environment harassment under the MHRA. In Continental Can Co. v. State, 297 N.W.2d 241, 249 (Minn.1980), we held that an employer could be liable for hostile environment discrimination under the MHRA “when the employer knew or should have known of the employees’ conduct alleged to constitute sexual harassment and fails to take timely and appropriate action.” The legislature subsequently wrote this “knows or *577should know” standard into the statutory definition of hostile environment harassment in the MHRA. Act of Mar. 23, 1982, ch. 619, § 3, 1982 Minn. Laws 1508, 1511 (codified at Minn.Stat. § 363.01, subd. 10a (1982)). And, as the majority acknowledges, we reaffirmed this standard recently in Goins v. West Group, 635 N.W.2d 717, 725 (Minn.2001).
In 2001, however, the legislature deleted the “knows or should know” language from the definition of hostile environment harassment. Act of May 24, 2001, eh. 194, § 1, 2001 Minn. Laws 723, 724 (amending Minn.Stat. § 363.01, subd. 41(3) (Supp. 2001), recodified at Minn.Stat. § 363A.03, subd. 43 (2006)). The majority concludes that this legislative change compels us to depart from nearly 30 years of precedent governing employer liability for hostile environment sexual harassment in the workplace. I disagree for two reasons and respectfully dissent.
First, in my view, it is not clear from either the plain text of the statute or the legislative history that, by deleting the “knows or should know” standard from the definition of sexual harassment, the legislature intended to adopt the federal standard of employer liability set forth by the United States Supreme Court in Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth, 524 U.S. 742, 118 S.Ct. 2257, 141 L.Ed.2d 633 (1998), and Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775, 118 S.Ct. 2275, 141 L.Ed.2d 662 (1998). Second, in the absence of a clear legislative intent, I would not engraft the federal standard onto the MHRA because application of that standard is not consistent with other clear provisions of the MHRA or with Minnesota common law. If the legislature intends to make the federal standard apply, further amendment of the MHRA would be necessary, and in my view such amendment is not within the purview of this court. See Annandale Advocate v. City of Annandale, 435 N.W.2d 24, 34 (Minn.1989) (explaining our attempt to interpret the applicable statutes “without judicial legislation” and stating that “[i]f the legislature feels that we have failed to interpret its motives properly, then it must clarify [the] statutes”).

1. The Legislative History Is Ambiguous as to What Standard Should Be Applied.

The majority concludes that the legislature’s “clear intent” in removing the “knows or should know” language from the MHRA definition of sexual harassment was to impose liability on employers for supervisor sexual harassment based on the standard articulated in Ellerth and Far-agher. In these cases, the Supreme Court adopted what it termed “the more stringent standard of vicarious liability,” Ellerth, 524 U.S. at 759, 118 S.Ct. 2257, and held that an employer may be vicariously liable under federal law for the harassing conduct of a supervisor: “An employer is subject to vicarious liability to a victimized employee for an actionable hostile environment created by a supervisor with immediate (or successively higher) authority over the employee.” Id. at 765, 118 S.Ct. 2257; Faragher, 524 U.S. at 807, 118 S.Ct. 2275. Such liability attaches to the employer not because of its own behavior, but rather because the supervisor is the employer’s agent in the workplace and because the supervisor is aided in accomplishing the harassment by this agency relationship. Ellerth, 524 U.S. at 760, 118 S.Ct. 2257; see also Faragher, 524 U.S. at 802, 118 S.Ct. 2275. This new “stringent” standard is the standard the majority today engrafts onto the MHRA.
But the statutory text of the MHRA does not contain any language that can reasonably be construed as adopting the federal Ellerth/Faragher standard. The *578majority attempts to avoid this omission from the statutory text by focusing on the legislative history associated with the amendment to the definition of sexual harassment. As Justice Robert Jackson noted, however, resorting to legislative history can present an interesting challenge for the judiciary:
When we decide from legislative history, including statements of witnesses at hearings, what Congress probably had in mind, we must put ourselves in the place of a majority of Congressmen and act according to the impression we think this history should have made on them. Never having been a Congressman, I am handicapped in that weird endeavor. That process seems to me not interpretation of a statute but creation of a statute.
United States v. Pub. Util. Comm’n of Cal., 345 U.S. 295, 319, 73 S.Ct. 706, 97 L.Ed. 1020 (1953) (Jackson, J., concurring).
This challenge is made greater in the present case because the legislative history the majority cites is contradictory. See S. Minn. Beet Sugar Coop. v. County of Renville, 737 N.W.2d 545, 553 n. 3 (Minn.2007) (declining to rely on “unclear” legislative history in construing statute). Specifically, the majority cites the testimony from the Commissioner of Human Rights. See Hearing on H.F. 767, H. Comm. Civil Law, 82d Minn. Leg., Feb. 26, 2001 [hereinafter Hrg. on H.F. 767] (audio tape) (comments of Janeen Rosas, Minn. Comm’r of Human Rights); Hearing on S.F. 1215, S. Judiciary Comm., 82d Minn. Leg., Apr. 3, 2001 [hereinafter Hrg. on S.F. 1215] (audio tape) (same). But the Commissioner’s comments are contradictory. On the one hand, the Commissioner argued that deletion of the “knows or should know” language was necessary to bring the MHRA into conformity with federal law. Hrg. on H.F. 767; Hrg. on S.F. 1215. But on the other hand, the Commissioner, when specifically asked whether the legislature should write the federal standard into the text of the statute, advised the legislature not to do so. The Commissioner opined that because sexual harassment involves “a very complicated area of the law and with all the nuisances [sic] in various cases[, it is] better addressed through case law as opposed to statute.” Hrg. on S.F. 1215. I cannot read this contradictory testimony as expressing a “clear intent” by the legislature that the Ellerth/Faragher standard applies to hostile environment claims under the MHRA.16
While the amendment deleted the “knows or should know” language from the statute, it did not expressly replace this standard with the federal Ellerth/Faragher standard; indeed, the amended statute is silent as to any standard of vicarious liability for sexual harassment. In my view, the only thing to be gleaned from the 2001 amendment is that the legislature intended for the judiciary to determine the standard to be applied.

2. The Federal Standard Is Not Consistent with the Text of the MHRA or Minnesota Common Law.

The question then becomes what standard should govern employer liability for hostile environment harassment. The majority reverts to the Ellerth/Faragher standard. Because that standard is based *579on the federal statute, which is different in two fundamental respects from the MHRA, I disagree with the majority’s conclusion to engraft that standard onto the MHRA. We have already indicated that we will depart from federal law interpreting Title VII when the provisions in the federal statute are different from those contained in the MHRA. Cummings v. Koehnen, 568 N.W.2d 418, 422 n. 5 (Minn.1997) (declining “to follow the federal rule here because the MHRA is not similar to Title VII in its treatment of sexual harassment”). I would follow the same principle in this case.
To see the inconsistency between the federal and state statutes, we need look no further than the language of the statutes. The MHRA provides that an employer commits “an unfair employment practice” by “discriminating] against a person with respect to hiring, tenure, compensation, terms, upgrading, conditions, facilities, or privileges of employment” based on a number of personal characteristics, including the person’s sex, Minn.Stat. § 363A.08, subd. 2 (2006), and provides that discrimination based on sex includes sexual harassment, Minn.Stat. § 363A.03, subd. 13 (2006). Most importantly for purposes of this case, the statute defines the term “employer” to mean “a person who has one or more employees.” Minn.Stat. § 363A.03, subd. 16 (2006).
In contrast to the MHRA, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, defines “employer” to include the employer’s “agents.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e(b) (2000). Through this definition, Congress “directed federal courts to interpret Title VII based on agency principles,” and the Ellerth/Faragher standard is built entirely on these agency principles. Ellerth, 524 U.S. at 754-55, 118 S.Ct. 2257 (relying “on the general common law of agency * * * pursuant to congressional direction” in establishing a new “uniform and predictable standard” for sexual harassment discrimination under Title VII). There is no similar legislative directive in the MHRA because the MHRA’s definition of employer does not include the employer’s agents. See Minn.Stat. § 363A.03, subd. 16; see also 17 Stephen F. Befort, Minnesota Practice — Employment Law & Practice § 9.14 (2d ed. 2003) (“The Act defines an employer as ‘a person who has one or more employees.’ As such, it does not appear to include supervisors or other agents of the employer to the extent that they are acting on its behalf.” (footnote omitted)). If, as the majority finds, the legislature intended the federal standard to apply to the MHRA, the legislature should have amended the definition of employer. But the legislature did not make this change, and this court is without authority to do so.
The second material difference between the MHRA and the federal law is found in the definition of sexual harassment itself. The MHRA defines “sexual harassment” as follows:
“Sexual harassment” includes unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, sexually motivated physical contact or other verbal or physical conduct or communication of a sexual nature when:
(1) submission to that conduct or communication is made a term or condition, either explicitly or implicitly, of obtaining employment, public accommodations or public services, education, or housing;
(2) submission to or rejection of that conduct or communication by an individual is used as a factor in decisions affecting that individual’s employment, public accommodations or public services, education, or housing; or
(3) that conduct or communication has the purpose or effect of substantially interfering with an individual’s employ*580ment, public accommodations or public services, education, or housing, or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive employment, public accommodations, public services, educational, or housing environment.
Minn.Stat. § 363A.03, subd. 43. The first two subparts of this definition are generally referred to as “quid pro quo” harassment, while the third is referred to as “hostile environment” harassment. The MHRA thus distinguishes between separate forms of actionable sexual harassment.
The federal statute, however, does not expressly define or prohibit sexual harassment; instead, federal courts have construed the general prohibition of discrimination based on sex to include sexual harassment. See, e.g., Meritor Sav. Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 63-67, 106 S.Ct. 2399, 91 L.Ed.2d 49 (1986). And in Ellerbh and Faragher, the Court “conflate[d]” the concepts of quid pro quo and hostile environment sexual harassment. Chambers v. Trettco, Inc., 463 Mich. 297, 614 N.W.2d 910, 917 (2000). Applying the federal standard therefore amounts to a rewrite of the MHRA insofar as the federal standard conflates what the MHRA defines as two separate forms of harassment. Such a revision of the statute is beyond the purview of the judicial branch.
The Michigan Supreme Court noted this problem in declining to engraft the federal standard onto its state’s anti-discrimination law. Like our statute, Michigan’s Civil Rights Act includes sexual harassment in the definition of sex discrimination, and the Michigan statute adopts the same two-part definition of “sexual harassment” as the Minnesota law. See Mich. Comp. Laws § 37.2103® (West 2001) (defining sexual harassment as both quid pro quo and hostile environment harassment). In Chambers v. Trettco, Inc., the Michigan Supreme Court considered whether the Ellerth/Faragher standard should apply under the Michigan statute. 614 N.W.2d at 912. The court rejected the federal standard, concluding that Ellerth and Far-agher “conflate the concepts of quid pro quo harassment and hostile environment harassment,” which the court found to be “expressly” included in the state statute’s definition of sexual harassment. Id. at 917. The court concluded that its “limited role in interpreting statutes would preclude” it “from essentially legislating” the Ellerth/Faragher standard into the state statute, “[e]ven if [the court] thought it sound policy to blur the distinctions between these types of sexual harassment in order to announce a common rule on vicarious liability that encompasses all sexual harassment.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted); see also McClements v. Ford Motor Co., 473 Mich. 373, 702 N.W.2d 166, 175 n. 14 (2005) (reaffirming Chambers and “declin[ing] to strictly impose vicarious liability in sexually hostile work environment cases, absent an awareness by the employer of the offensive conduct”).
The Michigan Supreme Court also rejected the invitation to write the federal standard into its state law because the federal standard “shift[s] the burden of proof from the employee to the employer regarding whether the employer should be held vicariously liable” for supervisor hostile environment sexual harassment. Chambers, 614 N.W.2d at 917. The court found no basis in the Michigan statute “for singling out sexual harassment cases, as opposed to other classes of prohibited discrimination” for “imposing upon defendants the burden of affirmatively disproving vicarious liability.” Id. at 918.
I come to the same conclusion as the Michigan Supreme Court with respect to engrafting the federal standard onto the MHRA. Like the Michigan statute, the *581MHRA identifies two separate forms of actionable sexual harassment, and it is not for this court to collapse these distinct concepts. And like the Michigan Supreme Court, we have recognized that the plaintiff bears the burden of proof in a claim brought for violation of the MHRA. E.g., Hoover v. Norwest Private Mortgage Banking, 632 N.W.2d 534, 542 (Minn.2001) (discussing plaintiffs burden to prove discriminatory discharge claim under the MHRA). There is no basis in the text of the MHRA for shifting the burden to the employer in the context of hostile environment harassment as application of the federal standard would do. Ellerth, 524 U.S. at 765, 118 S.Ct. 2257 (holding that employer is liable for hostile environment harassment unless employer proves by preponderance of the evidence the two prongs of the affirmative defense).17 In sum, in my view there is no basis in the text of the statute for this court to engraft the federal standard onto the MHRA.
The conclusion that this court ought not to adopt the federal standard is reinforced by Minnesota’s common law principles of agency, which in my view are not consistent with the federal Ellerth/Faragher standard. In Ellerth and Faragher, the Supreme Court specifically relied on the Restatement (Second) of Agency § 219(2)(d) (1957), which provides that a master may be liable for the torts of his servant, even if the servant’s conduct is outside the scope of his employment, if “the servant purported to act or to speak on behalf of the principal and there was reliance upon apparent authority, or he was aided in accomplishing the tort by the existence of the agency relation.” See Ellerth, 524 U.S. at 758, 118 S.Ct. 2257; Faragher, 524 U.S. at 801-03, 118 S.Ct. 2275.
The majority asserts that reliance on section 219 of the Restatement to “guide[ ] [the] analysis of supervisor liability” is supported by our decision in City of Minneapolis v. Richardson, 307 Minn. 80, 92-93, 239 N.W.2d 197, 205 (1976), because “[w]e considered the Restatement’s position on vicarious liability” in our analysis of that case. But Richardson addressed a completely different section of the Restatement, and our “consideration” of the Restatement in that case consisted of citing it as representative of an alternative rule to the one we adopted. Id. at 92 n. 14, 239 N.W.2d at 205 n. 14. Although we have clearly considered the Restatement (Second) of Agency in other cases addressing Minnesota’s common law of agency, see, e.g., Rosenberg v. Heritage Renovations, LLC, 685 N.W.2d 320, 331 (Minn.2004), we have never adopted section 219(2) of the Restatement. Thus, our common law of agency has not previously included the central rule from which the Supreme *582Court derived the Ellerth/Faragher standard.
For the foregoing reasons, I conclude that the judicial branch should not write the federal Ellerth/Faragher standard imposing vicarious liability on employers for hostile environment harassment into our state law. I would instead follow the rule we announced nearly 30 years ago in Continental Can and hold that where an employer knows or should know of sexually harassing conduct and fails to stop it, the employer is itself negligent and may be held liable for that negligence under the MHRA.18 See Continental Can, 297 N.W.2d at 249 (“[T]he Act does not impose a duty on the employer to maintain a pristine working environment. Rather, it imposes a duty on the employer to take prompt and appropriate action when it knows or should know of co-employees’ conduct in the workplace amounting to sexual harassment.”).
Applying this liability standard to Frieler’s hostile work environment claim,19 it is undisputed that CMG had no information from which it could be said that CMG knew or should have known about Janiak’s misconduct. Frieler did not report Jan-iak’s alleged harassing conduct to CMG until March 10, 2005 — 2 weeks after the initial incident and after she had already orally accepted the new position. Upon learning of her allegations, CMG immediately initiated an investigation and took steps to ensure that Frieler would not be subjected to further harassment. Based on this record, I conclude that no reasonable trier of fact could conclude that CMG knew or should have known of the alleged harassment in this case. Accordingly, I would affirm the district court’s entry of summary judgment.
II.
We are also asked to determine whether summary judgment was properly granted on Frielers assault and battery claim. The court of appeals found that Frieler did not create a genuine issue of material fact with respect to whether Janiak’s actions were foreseeable. Frieler v. Carlson Mktg. Group, Inc., No. A06-1693, 2007 WL 2107300, at *7 (Minn.App. July 24, 2007). The court of appeals held that Frieler was required to present expert testimony that sexual harassment is a well-known hazard in her particular industry, but she failed to do so. Id.
Frieler attempts to hold CMG liable for Janiak’s torts under the theory of respon-deat superior, and she argues that the court of appeals erroneously concluded that she needed to use expert testimony to establish that sexual harassment was foreseeable in her industry. According to Frieler, evidence of foreseeability is not necessary in cases in which the employer has knowledge that sexual harassment is a foreseeable risk or “when conduct becomes well known.” CMG contends that Frieler presented no evidence demonstrating that sexual harassment is a “well-known hazard” either in the warehouse/bindery industry or any other industry.
*583Under the doctrine of respondeat superior, “an employer is vicariously liable for the torts of an employee committed within the course and scope of employment.” Schneider v. Buckman, 433 N.W.2d 98, 101 (Minn.1988). But “an employee’s act need not be committed in furtherance of his employer’s business to fall within the scope of his employment” for purposes of respondeat superior. Fahrendorff v. N. Homes, Inc., 597 N.W.2d 905, 910 (Minn.1999). We have held that an employer is liable for an employee’s intentional misconduct if “(1) ‘the source of the [tort] is related to the duties of the employee,’ and (2) ‘the [tort] occurs within work-related limits of time and place.’” Id. (quoting Lange v. Nat’l Biscuit Co., 297 Minn. 399, 404, 211 N.W.2d 783, 786 (1973)).
In determining whether an employee’s intentional misconduct is within the scope of employment, the employee’s acts must be “foreseeable, related to and connected with acts otherwise within the scope of employment.” Id. Whether an employee’s acts are foreseeable is a question of fact. Id.; Marston v. Minneapolis Clinic of Psychiatry & Neurology, Ltd., 329 N.W.2d 306, 311 (Minn.1982).
In this ease, the parties dispute only one aspect of this scope of employment analysis — whether Janiak’s alleged assault and battery of Frieler was sufficiently foreseeable that public policy considerations support allocating the costs associated with such misconduct to CMG. See Fahrendorff, 597 N.W.2d at 910 (noting that re-spondeat superior liability is not based on “any fault of the employer,” but instead arises “from a public policy determination that liability for acts committed within the scope of employment should be allocated to the employer as a cost of engaging in that business”).
Our cases clearly hold that a plaintiff must present some evidence that an employee’s sexual misconduct was foreseeable to survive summary judgment on a claim of respondeat superior liability for an intentional tort. In Marston, we held that a doctor’s sexual acts with a patient during therapy sessions were not, as a matter of law, outside the scope of the doctor’s employment because testimony was presented “that sexual relations between a psychologist and a patient is a well-known hazard and thus, to a degree, foreseeable and a risk of employment.” 329 N.W.2d at 311. Similarly, in Fahren-dorff, we reversed the district court’s entry of summary judgment for the employer, a group home for minor children, after concluding that an expert affidavit “expressly stating that ‘inappropriate sexual contact or abuse of power in [group home] situations, although infrequent, is a well known hazard in this field’ ” was “sufficient to raise a question of fact on the foreseeability of sexual abuse in the group home industry.” 597 N.W.2d at 911-12 (alteration in original). On the other hand, we held in P.L. v. Aubert, 545 N.W.2d 666, 668 (Minn.1996), that there was no factual issue with respect to whether a teacher’s sexual relations with a student were within the scope of her employment because the plaintiff failed to present evidence “that such relationships between teacher and student are a ‘well-known hazard’; thus foreseeability is absent.”
Frieler asks us to rule, in essence, that sexual harassment is “foreseeable as a matter of law” because sexual harassment is a common problem in American workplaces. While wé recognize that courts, including the Supreme Court, have acknowledged that sexual harassment is, unfortunately, a prevalent problem, see Faragher, 524 U.S. at 798, 118 S.Ct. 2275, we are not willing to reverse our long-standing precedent that for purposes of respon-deat superior, the foreseeability of an em*584ployee’s conduct is a question of fact to be analyzed based on the evidence presented in the particular case.20 See Fahrendoff, 597 N.W.2d at 910; Aubert, 545 N.W.2d at 668; Marston, 329 N.W.2d at 311. Frieler has not cited, and we cannot find, a single case in which a court has held intentional torts committed by an employee in the course of his or her sexual harassment of another employee to be foreseeable as a matter of law for purposes of holding an employer liable under the doctrine of re-spondeat superior. We decline Frieler’s invitation to adopt such a sweeping rule.
We instead adhere to our precedent and hold that the rule that we previously applied in Marston, Aubert, and Fahrendorff applies to a claim that an employer is liable for the intentional torts committed by one of its employees during his or her sexual harassment of another employee. Under this rule, to survive summary judgment on a claim that an employer is liable for an employee’s intentional tort under the doctrine of responde-at superior, the plaintiff must present sufficient evidence to raise an issue of fact with respect to the foreseeability of such misconduct by the employee.
In this case, Frieler did not present sufficient evidence on which a reasonable jury could conclude that Janiak’s alleged assault and battery was foreseeable. Frieler argues that evidence that an employer has a sexual harassment policy is sufficient to raise a factual dispute with respect to the foreseeability of sexual harassment in the workplace. But courts have recognized that employers should be encouraged as a matter of public policy to implement policies to prevent and address harassment in the workplace. See, e.g., Ellerth, 524 U.S. at 764, 118 S.Ct. 2257. The fact that an employer proactively adopts such a policy is insufficient, in and of itself, to create a genuine issue of material fact regarding whether the sexual harassment committed by an employee was foreseeable. Because Frieler failed to raise an issue of fact with respect to the foreseeability of Janiak’s sexual harassment, summary judgment was properly granted on her common law claims of assault and battery.
Reversed and remanded with respect to the MHRA claim, affirmed with respect to the assault and battery claim.
ANDERSON, RUSSELL A., Chief Justice.
I join in parts I-IV of the opinion of Justice Page and in part II of the opinion of Justice Gildea.
ANDERSON, PAUL H., Justice.
I join in parts I-IV of the opinion of Justice Page and in part II of the opinion of Justice Gildea.
MEYER, Justice.
I join in parts I-IV of the opinion of Justice Page and in part II of the opinion of Justice Gildea.

. Part II of this opinion is the opinion of the court with respect to the common law assault and battery claim.

. Moreover, in my view, the majority’s deference to the Commissioner’s statements during the legislative hearings is misplaced. Although we may give deference to “an agency’s interpretation of the statutes it administers” when those statutes are ambiguous, Geo. A. Hormel & Co. v. Asper, 428 N.W.2d 47, 50 (Minn.1988) (emphasis added), the statements here are not an interpretation of a statute, but rather testimony advocating a change in those statutes.

. The majority asserts that it is not shifting the burden of proof to the employer by adopting the federal Ellerth/Faragher standard because "a plaintiff must still prove: (1) she is a member of a protected class; (2) she was subject to unwelcome harassment; (3) the harassment was based on membership in a protected group; and (4) the harassment affected a term, condition, or privilege of her employment.” Although the plaintiff is thus still required to prove that harassment has occurred, our existing law also requires the plaintiff to establish a basis for holding the employer liable for that harassment. Under the federal standard, however, employer liability for the harassment is presumed unless the employer establishes the affirmative defense. This is the burden that is shifted under the federal standard and, as was the case in Michigan, so too does this represent a departure from existing discrimination law in Minnesota. The majority cites Goins as an example of where it contends "we have endorsed such burden shifting in claims under the MHRA.” But the example cited does not involve hostile environment harassment. Thus, this example is not apposite to the burden shifting problem created by the federal standard in cases of hostile environment harassment.

. The majority suggests that to continue to apply the standard we adopted in Continental Can is to engraft a liability standard onto the MHRA. But there is a significant difference between my application of a standard that is consistent with both the statutory text and our existing precedent, and the majority's adoption of a new standard that is inconsistent with the plain language of the statute, dramatically changes the long-standing policy of this state, and represents a departure from precedent.

. Frieler's complaint stated only a claim for hostile work environment harassment under the MHRA. I therefore decline to consider whether there could be an issue of material fact with respect to a quid pro quo harassment claim based on this factual record.

. The dissent contends that we should find that sexual harassment is foreseeable as a matter of law for purposes of respondeat superior. The dissent attempts to justify this dramatic shift in our law by suggesting that the court has found a low level of evidence showing the foreseeability of the sexual misconduct of employees to be sufficient to withstand a motion for summary judgment. The dissent also asserts that requiring evidence of this essential element of a respondeat superi- or claim "would place form over substance” and only places an unnecessary financial burden on plaintiffs. But the fact that a relatively low threshold is sufficient to survive summary judgment cannot justify a complete removal of the requirement. Further, it does not place “form over substance” to require a plaintiff to present sufficient evidence of the necessary elements of her claim to survive summary judgment.