Court Opinion

ID: 9543414
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:45:25.256279+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:10:18.703581
License: Public Domain

*695Lynch, J.
(dissenting). I believe the court by its decision today so broadly construes the Massachusetts Constitution that it has created a boundless right of one citizen to sue another which is both unprecedented and unwarranted. I, therefore, dissent.
The sole basis for the plaintiff’s appeal to this court is that she was deprived of her right to equal protection of the laws against sex discrimination. I do not agree that she makes such a case. First of all, I would hold that she has no constitutionally protected right to be free of sexual harassment at her place of employment. The Massachusetts Civil Rights Act protects against the interference with an individual’s rights protected by the Constitution or laws of the Commonwealth. As the court correctly observes, it was recently decided that “sexual harassment may constitute discrimination in violation of G. L. c. 15IB, § 4 (1),” quoting College Town, Div. of Interco, Inc. v. Massachusetts Comm’n Against Discrimination, ante 156, 162 (1987). But the court also correctly points out that G. L. c. 151B, § 4, does not apply in this case. Ante at 693 n.9. It is clear that the plaintiff cannot mount an equal protection challenge on the basis of a statute that does not apply, and she relies on no other statute. She is, therefore, left with a sex-based discrimination claim founded exclusively on the Massachusetts Constitution. As reprehensible as the defendant’s personal conduct toward the plaintiff was, I conclude that it does not reach the level of conduct which violates the Massachusetts Constitution. The defendant’s acts were not directed against the plaintiff because she was a woman, but because she was sexually appealing to him. Huebschen v. Department of Health & Social Servs., 716 F.2d 1167, 1171-1172 (7th Cir. 1983). Sexual harassment could exist if a supervisor was of the same sex as a subordinate, or by a female supervisor against a male subordinate, depending on the sexual orientation of the supervisor. Such conduct can be, and is, forbidden by statute but is not discriminatory conduct directed toward the subordinate because he or she is a man or a woman. The fact that the court has concluded that failure to prevent sexual harassment constitutes discrimination based on sex against an employee in terms, *696conditions, or privileges of employment within the meaning of G. L. c. 151B, § 4 (1), does not compel the conclusion that the plaintiff has been denied equality under the law because of her sex. To me, a mere reading of the language of art. 1 compels the opposite conclusion. The plaintiff has not been deprived of any legally protected right because of her sex. She has been subjected to reprehensible conduct of a sexual nature, which is prohibited by a statute that does not apply. Article 1 of the Mass. Declaration of Rights, as amended by art. 106 of the Amendments, does not protect against offensive behavior because of its sexual connotation. Surely not every “off color” joke, sexual innuendo, double entendre, or unwarranted proposition offends the Massachusetts Constitution. To conclude so not only creates a source of constitutionally based claims without limit or clear definition, but also trivializes and offends the dignity of that great instrument.
In reaching this view, I am not unmindful of the Federal decisions that have found sexual harassment violative of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Bohen v. East Chicago, 799 F.2d 1180, 1185 (7th Cir. 1986), and cases cited. That those decisions do not compel a similar result here can be explained by important differences between the two instruments. The Fourteenth Amendment requires State action and, therefore, it has no application to individual conduct not reaching the level of State action. Secondly, most, if not all, of the cases of sexual harassment cognizable under Federal equal protection principles have arisen in the context of the State as an employer which has condoned, or at least permitted, sex-based working conditions to exist free of penalty, admonition, or opprobrium. Even in the Federal context, where a State action requirement exists, not every case of sexual harassment rises to the level of a denial of equal protection. Bohen v. East Chicago, supra at 1186, and cases cited.
Furthermore, the court’s application of art. 1 to the facts of this case runs counter to the essence of equal protection analysis. It has been said that the central purpose of the Federal equal protection clause, “made clear by its wording, is to *697prevent states from withdrawing legal protection from minorities.” Bohen v. East Chicago, supra at 1190 (Posner, J., concurring). The same is true of art. 1. What is prohibited by art. 1 is the denial of the equal application of a law to a protected class. The vice protected against is the withdrawal of legal protection from a specified class of citizens with the result that members of that class are afforded less protection than citizens generally. The essence of equal protection is the denial of equality under law. Therefore, no law can constitutionally be enacted that would not be uniformly applied to all citizens regardless of sex, race, color, creed, or national origin, nor could any law be applied or enforced so as to achieve unequal results among those enumerated classes. Thus by its very words art. 1 forbids the unequal treatment under law of those classes protected. The Legislature cannot, of course, rewrite the Constitution and, therefore, it cannot abolish the equality under law requirement of art. 1. Whatever else the phrase “whether or not under color of State law” means in the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, that language cannot eliminate the “under law” requirement of art. 1. Therefore, there is no statutory or constitutional prohibition of the conduct which is the basis of the plaintiff’s claims.
The view expressed here is not inconsistent with Bell v. Mazza, 394 Mass. 176 (1985), on which the court places substantial reliance. In that decision, the court concluded that G. L. c. 12, § 11I, authorized a suit against a private person even though no State action was involved. The plaintiffs in Bell, however, alleged that the defendants had interfered with rights guaranteed by art. 10 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property. Although Bell involved interference with property it follows that any interference with an individual’s life or liberty by threats or coercion would be also actionable under G. L. c. 12, § 11I, without any State action. Since art. 1 by its very terms protects an individual against discriminatory State action, the court’s reasoning in Bell v. Mazza has no application to claims based solely on a denial of equal protection in the absence of State action.
*698Although the analysis I espouse is not inconsistent with that of Bell v. Mazza, I should point out that the reconciliation of these views is a burden I do not bear.
I believe that Bell v. Mazza was wrongly decided and that it was not compelled by Batchelder v. Allied Stores Corp., 393 Mass. 819 (1985) (Batchelder II), a decision construing a plaintiff’s right under art. 9. In Batchelder v. Allied Stores Int'l, Inc., 388 Mass. 83 (1983) (Batchelder I), the court was careful to point out it was limiting the scope of its decision to ballot access under art. 9, not free speech in general because:
“Ballot access is of fundamental importance in our form of government because through the ballot the people can control their government. See Bachrach v. Secretary of the Commonwealth, 382 Mass. 268, 272 n.9 (1981). In limiting our decision to the matter of soliciting signatures on ballot questions, we leave to another day the question of rights that may arise under art. 16 (free speech). The concept of free elections and an equal right to be elected ‘for public employments’ embodied in art. 9 supports our conclusion that Batchelder has a constitutional right to solicit signatures at the North Shore Shopping Center. The difference between free speech and art. 9 rights to free elections and to be a candidate equally with others is not purely theoretical. Ideas and views can be transmitted through the press, by door-to-door distributions, or through the mail, without personal contact. On the other hand, a person needing signatures for ballot access requires personal contact with voters. He or she cannot reasonably obtain them in any other way. Reasonable access to the public is essential in ballot access matters” (footnote omitted). Id. at 91-92.
Two members of the court joined me in Batchelder I in the view that even the fundamental right of ballot access under art. 9 protects the people against “governmental abridgements and not [from] interferences generally.” Batchelder I, supra at 95 (Lynch, J., dissenting). The court therefore began with a limited abridgement of the State action requirement under *699art. 9 (Batchelder I), passed to a reading of the Declaration of Rights free of any State action limitation for the rights specifically protected (Bell v. Mazza), and finally today ends the cycle with an interpretation that stands for the proposition that the right of equality under the law does not depend upon the existence of any specific law or constitutionally guaranteed right. This goes far beyond what would have followed from Batchelder I or Bell v. Mazza. Regretably, the court has fulfilled my prediction in Batchelder I: “Now there is no limit to the range of wrongs which this court may right,” Batchelder I, supra at 97 (Lynch, J., dissenting), quoting Alderwood Assocs. v. Washington Envtl. Council, 96 Wash. 2d 230, 250-251 (1981) (Dolliver, J., concurring).
I would affirm the judgment of the Superior Court.