Nature of the Case
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Facts
In March 1998, D hired P as a police communications operator. P's supervisors were Sergeant Eric D. Easton, Station Commander, Patrol Corporal William D. Baker, and Corporal Eric B. Prendergast. Ibid. Those three supervisors subjected P to a continuous barrage of sexual harassment that ceased only when she resigned from the force. Easton 'would bring up [the subject of] people having sex with animals' each time Suders entered his office. He told Prendergast, in front of P, that young girls should be given instruction in how to gratify men with oral sex. Easton also would sit down near P, wearing spandex shorts, and spread his legs apart. Baker repeatedly made an obscene gesture in P's presence by grabbing his genitals and shouting out a vulgar comment inviting oral sex. IBaker made this gesture as many as five-to-ten times per night throughout P's employment at the barracks. P once told Baker she ''d[id]n't think [he] should be doing this''; Baker responded by jumping on a chair and again performing the gesture, with the accompanying vulgarity. Baker would 'rub his rear end in front of her and remark 'I have a nice ass, don't I?'' Prendergast told P ''the village idiot could do her job''; wearing black gloves, he would pound on furniture to intimidate her. In June 1998, Prendergast accused P of taking a missing accident file home with her. IP approached the D's Equal Employment Opportunity Officer, Virginia Smith-Elliott, and told her she 'might need some help.' Smith-Elliott gave P her telephone number, but neither woman followed up on the conversation. On August 18, 1998, P contacted Smith-Elliott again, this time stating that she was being harassed and was afraid. P was told to file a complaint, but Smith-Elliott did not tell her how to obtain the necessary form. Smith-Elliott's response and the manner in which it was conveyed appeared to P insensitive and unhelpful. Two days later, P's supervisors arrested her for theft, and P resigned from the force. P had several times taken a computer-skills exam to satisfy a D job requirement. P's supervisors told her that she had failed. One day P came upon her exams in a set of drawers in the women's locker room. She concluded that her supervisors had never forwarded the tests for grading and that their reports of her failures were false. P removed them from the locker room. P's supervisors devised a plan to arrest her for theft. The officers dusted the drawer in which the exams had been stored with a theft-detection powder that turns hands blue when touched. P attempted to return the tests to the drawer, whereupon her hands turned telltale blue. was apprehended and handcuffed, photographed, and questioned. P had previously prepared a written resignation, which she tendered soon after the supervisors detained her. They brought her to an interrogation room, gave her warnings under Miranda, and continued to question her. P reiterated that she wanted to resign, and Easton then let her leave. D never brought theft charges against her. P sued D alleging that she had been subjected to sexual harassment and constructively discharged, in violation of Title VII. The District Court granted D's motion for summary judgment. The court nevertheless held that D was not vicariously liable for the supervisors' conduct. When no tangible employment action is taken the employer may raise an affirmative defense to liability, subject to proof by a preponderance of the evidence. The defense comprises two necessary elements: (a) that the employer exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly any sexually harassing behavior, and (b) that the plaintiff employee unreasonably failed to take advantage of any preventive or corrective opportunities provided by the employer or to avoid harm otherwise. The court held that P 'unreasonably failed to avail herself of D's internal procedures for reporting any harassment.' The District Court did not address P’s constructive discharge claim. The Third Circuit agreed with the District Court that P had presented evidence sufficient for a trier of fact to conclude that the supervisors had engaged in a 'pattern of sexual harassment that was pervasive and regular.' It then held that, even assuming D could assert the affirmative defense genuine issues of material fact existed concerning the effectiveness of D's 'program . . . to address sexual harassment claims.' A plaintiff alleging constructive discharge in violation of Title VII, the Court of Appeals stated, must establish:'(1) he or she suffered harassment or discrimination so intolerable that a reasonable person in the same position would have felt compelled to resign . . . ; and (2) the employee's reaction to the workplace situation--that is, his or her decision to resign--was reasonable given the totality of circumstances . . . It held that 'a constructive discharge, when proved, constitutes a tangible employment action.' Such an action renders an employer strictly liable and precludes employer recourse to the affirmative defense announced in those decisions. D appealed.
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