Court Opinion

ID: 9493883
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:22:09.061364+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:05.147694
License: Public Domain

D.W. NELSON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Same-sex sexual harassment is actionable under Title VII, see Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Servs., Inc., 523 U.S. 75, 118 S.Ct. 998, 140 L.Ed.2d 201 (1998), but discrimination because of sexual orientation is not. See DeSantis v. Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co., 608 F.2d 327 (9th Cir.1979). The question before this court is whether countless sexual assaults of an openly gay employee by male co-workers over the course of more than two years of employment can constitute discrimination on the basis of sex. The majority answers in the negative, and I respectfully dissent.
Although the majority contends that the facts of Oncale are essentially irrelevant to the narrow question presented on certiora-*1211ri, the Supreme Court was not making an advisory decision. If the facts of Oncale did not potentially support a case of sex discrimination, there would have been no basis for a remand to the lower courts. The majority unwisely glosses over the strong similarity between the facts of On-cale and those of the present case. In Oncale, a man employed as a roustabout on an offshore oil platform was “forcibly subjected to sex-related, humiliating actions against him” by male co-workers, “physically assaulted in a sexual manner,” and threatened with rape. Id. at 77, 118 S.Ct. 998. In the present case, Medina Rene testified in a deposition that nearly every day that he worked on the 29th floor of the MGM Grand Hotel, co-workers would insert their fingers into his anus through his clothing, grab his crotch, and caress his face and touch his body “like they would do to a woman.”
The major difference between Oncale and the present case is that Rene is openly gay and testified that he thought he was being abused because of his sexual orientation. Surely that is not enough to defeat his Title VII claim. The subjective belief of the victim of sexual harassment that there is a non-sex-related reason for the harassment is immaterial. The only subjective component relevant to the determination of sexual harassment involves whether the employee perceives his or her workplace as hostile or abusive. See Harris v. Forklift Sys., Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 22-23, 114 S.Ct. 367, 126 L.Ed.2d 295 (1993). In the context of male-female sexual harassment, the act of harassment itself usually permits an inference of sex discrimination. Oncale, 523 U.S. at 80, 118 S.Ct. 998. There is no logical basis for inferring otherwise in the same-sex context, especially where the acts complained of involve sexual assaults targeting only one sex. The majority notes that the Supreme Court in Oncale gave three examples of successful same-sex harassment claims under Title VII. But the Oncale Court recognized that these examples are not an exhaustive list of meritorious Title VII claims. Id. at 80-81, 118 S.Ct. 998. To the extent that the majority limits Rene’s grounds for relief to this non-exhaustive list, the majority fundamentally misreads Oncale.
While gay-baiting insults and teasing are not actionable under Title VII, a line is crossed when the abuse is physical and sexual. None of the cases cited by the majority to show that sexual orientation falls outside Title VII involves sexual assault. Rather, they involve verbal abuse, Higgins v. New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc., 194 F.3d 252, 257 (1st Cir.1999); reprimands for wearing makeup at work as well as allegedly false accusations that an employee was disrupting the workflow by discussing his sex life, Williamson v. A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc., 876 F.2d 69, 70 (8th Cir.1989); and dismissal from work for wearing an earring and verbal harassment, DeSantis v. Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co., Inc., 608 F.2d 327, 328-29 (9th Cir.1979). The fourth ease cited, Wrightson v. Pizza Hut of America, Inc., 99 F.3d 138, 144 (4th Cir.1996), held that a same-sex hostile work environment claim may lie under Title VII where the harasser is gay.
Unlike the plaintiffs in the above-mentioned cases, Rene has alleged that his attackers shoved their fingers into his anus and grabbed at his genitals. If his attackers were women or if they were gay men- or if Rene were a lesbian attacked by straight men-there is no question that the plaintiffs openly gay status would not be a complete defense to his Title VII ■ claim. Nor would sexual orientation provide a defense for a gay male who harasses a female employee. That Rene’s attackers were ostensibly heterosexual men is no basis for a different outcome-the attack was homosexual in nature, and his case involves allegations of sexual abuse that female employees did not have to endure. Rene’s attackers may have targeted him for sexual pleasure, as an outlet for rage, as a means of affirming their own heterosexuality, or any combination of a myriad of factors, the determination of which falls far beyond the competence of any court. *1212The effect was to humiliate Rene as a man. Enforcing Title VII in the mixed-gender context does not involve determining which pleasure center in the attackers’ brains was stimulated by the attacks, nor should it in this case.
Finally, the majority takes consolation from the fact that state law remedies could have been available to Rene. But the two-year Nevada statute of limitations has run for the tort claims he might have brought. See Nev.Rev.Stat. §§ 11.190(4)(c) & (e). Because of the majority’s holding, the appalling conduct alleged by Rene is “immune from other legal recourse.”