A retail employee in South Carolina began experiencing troubles with her male supervisor ever since she was transferred to another store of the retail chain in Belton. Among these harassments were verbal insults and inappropriate physical contact by the supervisor who assigned her tight schedules, excessive work and even demanded she work on her off day for failing to oblige to his advances. In spite of these strong complaints, neither a federal district court nor the 4th Circuit could punish either the supervisor or the organization to which the lady had complained several times.
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The Travails of the Female Employee
When she was transferred as assistant store manager in 2006 to the new store, she claims the manager insulted her and threatened her by asking her to be good to him or else he’d bring about problems in her work. The manager once pushed himself against the woman when the two were alone in the store office. She was to silently bear these moves. Once she was called to the storeroom but fearing more advances by the manager she pretended that she couldn’t hear. The manager apparently realized the pretension and made her clean the entire store after it was closed, as punishment.
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Immediately the next day the lady was accused of improperly setting the alarm and was asked to work the next day, which was a Sunday and her off day, as further punishment. That Saturday the manager again touched her inappropriately, pushing himself against her. This was the last straw for the assistant sales manager. She never worked the following day, but instead complained to two other managers of the retail chain and the district manager who was superior to her manager. None of these were of much avail. The district manager felt that the lady was overreacting. This forced the assistant sales manager to quit.
Complex Arguments at Court
She then approached the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission where she filed a complaint. The rest was up to the court. According to a federal district judge the manager could not be classified as the woman’s supervisor since he did not have the right either to fire or to hire her. He was, the judge said, just her co-worker, making the retail chain not liable for the conduct. The woman was therefore left with no case.
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She then appealed to the 4th Circuit. According to the appellate judges, the woman could be controlled by the manager as he was her immediate superior and the store’s highest ranking employee. Being her supervisor, he could assign work and set her schedule. But that also made the retail chain liable for the woman being harassed by the manager.
The Controversial Point
The question that threw a spanner in the works was whether the assistant sales manager needed to quit in the first place. Any organization is bound to undertake preventive measures and the woman could have made use of them, if they existed in the organization. This is precisely the point that could save the organization. Why didn’t the assistant sales manager make use of the preventive measures, which would have saved her from quitting? However, the woman could also argue that the environment was too tough for any preventive measure to work, especially since her superior was in control of everything in the store, as he himself told her when she joined it.
Though the appellate judges did realize that the organization had not conducted any detailed investigation into the matter and had failed to take disciplinary action against the erring manager, or at least transfer the harassed assistant sales manager to another store, the quitting of the woman when no adverse employment action entailed it has caused the judges to send the case for a jury trial back to the district court.
