Court Opinion

ID: 9701955
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:47:14.206718+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:31.392025
License: Public Domain

PAGE, Justice
(dissenting).
I simply cannot join in any opinion of this court that states, as this one does, that workplace sexual harassment constitutes a business pursuit. Under our Human Rights Act, sexual harassment in employment, public accommodations or public services, education and housing is illegal. See Minn.Stat. § 363.03 (1998). It has been illegal in the employment setting since this court’s 1980 decision in Continental Can Co. v. State ex rel. Wilson, 297 N.W.2d 241, 249 (1980). Over the years, a great number of people have fought hard to eradicate sexual harassment from the workplace and every other place where it is found. For this court to now give sexual harassment legitimacy by labeling it a business pursuit, I cannot abide.1
Moreover, we have said that a business pursuit must contribute to or further the interest of the business. See Milwaukee Mut. Ins. Co. v. City of Minneapolis, 307 Minn. 301, 309, 239 N.W.2d 472, 476 (1976). Putting aside its toll on the human spirit, it has been estimated that between 1978 and 1980, the effects of sexual harassment cost the federal government $189 million and for the years 1985 to 1987, $267 million. See Barry S. Roberts & Richard A. Mann, Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: A Primer, 29 Akron L.Rev. 269, 271 (Winter 1996). It is estimated that for the typical Fortune 500 company, the cost of sexual harassment is $6.7 million annually. See id. Clearly, workplace sexual harassment does not contribute to or further the interest of any business. Therefore, I dissent.2

. The court suggests that concluding that sexual harassment does not constitute a business pursuit would lead to a perverse result. The only reasons the result would be perverse in this case are because Safeco drafted its policy using language which did not explicitly exclude sexual harassment from coverage and because, unlike the other insurance companies involved in this case, Safeco elected not to assert its policy's intentional acts exclusion in denying Zimmerman’s claim.

. I also raise my voice in dissent to the extent that the court's opinion suggests that an insurer has no duty to defend an insured who is accused of having engaged in sexual harassment. See Brown v. State Auto. & Cas. Underwriters, 293 N.W.2d 822, 825-26 (Minn.1980). See generally Haarstad v. Graff, 517 N.W.2d 582, 585 (Minn.1994).