Smith v. Amedisys Inc.

Facts

P was employed by D. P alleges that she was subjected to sexual harassment by Chief Operations Officer Promod Seth (Seth), who was her immediate supervisor, Chief Financial Officer Mitchell Morel (Morel), and Chief Executive Officer William Borne (Borne). Seth was flirtatious and would put his arm around her in front of other employees. Seth requested to have dinner and drinks on numerous occasions, he would touch her hands at dinner, and he would repeatedly touch her leg, and hold her hand when she would drive him to work or to appointments.  Smith rejected the advances and told him not to hold her hand because it was inappropriate and it made her feel uncomfortable. There were several business trips that P and Seth took together where he would make sexual advances toward her. On one business trip, Seth came to P's hotel room under the guise of watching television and, while he was there, grabbed her hand and pulled her to the bed next to him, kissing, holding, and touching her and saying that he wanted her to lay down and watch television with him. She told him no several times. Seth told Smith to wear shorter skirts, low-cut blouses, tighter fitting clothing, and high heels to improve sales for D. Seth said that he wanted 'good looking women' wearing 'short skirts' to go on appointments with the doctors and told the employees, including P, 'whatever [they] had to do to get the contract signed, get them signed and it didn't matter.' Morel made repeated comments about P's clothing and her physical appearance, as well as the appearances of other women. Morel told her that he was glad to see a 'good looking' woman in the sales position because the previous woman in Smith's position was 'tall and she had bleached blond hair and she was really thin and wrinkly.' Morel always commented about who P was previously and currently dating, made sexually oriented comments about how P obtained certain contracts and business, commented about her sex life, and repeatedly suggested that she prostitute herself in order to obtain business for the company. Borne also made sexually oriented and offensive comments about other women's appearances, involving their sizes, shapes, height, weight, faces, and hair; the type of women he found attractive; and 'what turned him on.' On September 27, 1996, Borne received reports from a client that P was making derogatory statements regarding D and Borne. P was permitted to resign, in lieu of termination. P entered into a separation agreement with D in which she released 'AMEDISYS of any and all employment-related claims.' P sued Ds alleging claims arising under Louisiana employment discrimination statutes and Louisiana tort law. P alleged sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. D removed the case following P's amendment to add claims under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. D filed a motion to remand, seeking remand of the action under 28 U.S.C. § 1447 based upon procedural defects, or alternatively, remand of all or part of her claims under 28 U.S.C. § 1441(c). This motion was denied. P filed a supplemental and amended complaint. Ds filed motions for summary judgment. The trial court granted the motion and dismissed all of P's claims under Title VII. It concluded that P's state law claims did not involve novel or complex issues of law, that extensive discovery had been completed and the case had been pending for almost three years, that the parties had exhaustively briefed the issues in the case, and that the court was intimately familiar with the merits of P's claims, the trial court held that retaining the state law claims was appropriate. The court retained supplemental jurisdiction over P’s state-law claims because the federal claims were not 'separate and independent' from her state-law claims. The court refused to remand the entire action and then granted Ds summary judgment on them. P appealed.

Issues

Rule of Law

Holding and Decision

Legal Analysis

© 2007-2024 ABN Study Partner.