Yesterday, the Franklin County Court of Appeals reversed an employer’s summary judgment on a sexual harassment claim, but affirmed dismissal of the wrongful discharge claim. Camp v. Star Leasing Co., 2012-Ohio-3650. In that case, the plaintiff presented sufficient evidence that her male boss regularly demeaned her, but was not similarly hostile to male employees. Only one of his comments was sex-specific and none of it was related to any arguable sexual attraction. The Court also rejected the employer’s affirmative defense. However, the Court upheld her termination after she requested four additional months of medical leave for depression and anxiety following the completion of her FMLA leave on the grounds that her episodic flare-up of mental symptoms did not qualify as a disability or entitle her to additional leave as a reasonable accommodation.
The Court’s opinion contained a number examples of the condescending and degrading treatment which the plaintiff alleged she endured over a five-year period. One of them was described:
[He] treated her in a degrading and humiliating manner throughout the time he acted as her supervisor. [She] testified to multiple examples of this treatment. First, [she] stated that [he] required her to stop whatever she was doing, turn her chair around to face him, put her hands in her lap, and look him in the eye whenever he spoke to her. One time, when [she] did not respond fast enough to [his] presence, [he] twirled her chair around and yelled, "I want eye contact. I want eye contact. Right here. Right here. Look me in the eyes." . . . . While yelling, [he] pointed at [her] face and then at his eyes. [He] did not require male employees to stop what they were doing, put their hands in their laps, and look him in the eye when he spoke with them.
He allegedly also used offensive language when he spoke with her, unlike the male employees. He would only meet with male sales representatives, but not female ones (although he would occasionally make comments about being sexually attracted to them). He permitted male employees to bring Playboy magazines to work, where she would be required to see them.
The plaintiff complained to upper management that she felt discriminated against on account of her sex, but no formal investigation was ever conducted. After a number of years, the plaintiff’s mental health suffered and she took a leave of absence upon her doctor’s advice. After exhausting her FMLA leave, she requested four additional months, but was denied and terminated on account of the nature of her position and inability to temporarily replace her. The trial court granted summary judgment to the employer on all of her claims.
The Court of Appeals found that she had provided enough evidence (from her own experience and that of other female employees) to demonstrate a hostile work environment. She experienced the hostile conduct on daily basis, making it sufficiently pervasive. While the employer attempted to defend her manager on the grounds that he was equally rude to everyone, her denial of ever seeing him similarly denigrate male employees was sufficient to create an issue of fact for the jury to resolve. She was able to show that it affected her ability to work in making her increasingly anxious and depressed, finally requiring significant medical treatment.
The employer attempted to argue that it was entitled to an affirmative defense because she failed to sufficiently utilized internal procedures concerning workplace harassment. It first argued that she could not show that she suffered a material job action in that she had always received raises and favorable performance evaluations. However, the Court pointed out that she was not required to prove the existence of a tangible job action to recover for a hostile work environment; that was an element of the employer’s affirmative defense. Moreover, the plaintiff had utilized the employer’s policy and complained about discriminatory treatment. While she did not utilized the word “harassment,” she sufficiently described his demeaning treatment of her. The employer did not conduct any investigation and concluded based on cursory inquiries that she simply had a personality conflict with her boss. When the employer argued that she had failed to submit any written complaints about her boss, the Court pointed out that the employer’s policy did not contain any such requirement.
Finally, the Court affirmed dismissal of her wrongful discharge claim. She claimed that she was fired on account of her mental disability when the employer refused to provide an accommodation of four months of additional medical leave. The Court determined that a four month episode of depression and anxiety was insufficiently severe or enduring to substantially limit a major life activity or constitute a disability. Therefore, she was not entitled to any reasonable accommodation or additional leave of absence following the conclusion of her FMLA leave.
NOTICE: This summary is designed merely to inform and alert you of recent legal developments. It does not constitute legal advice and does not apply to any particular situation because different facts could lead to different results. Information here can change or be amended without notice. Readers should not act upon this information without legal advice. If you have any questions about anything you have read, you should consult with or retain an employment attorney.
