Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 14, 1993 TAG: 9310140146
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: NASHVILLE, TENN. LENGTH: Long
She attended some of their beer-drinking sessions at a bar after work, exchanged dirty jokes and incorporated into her vocabulary some of the off-color language her co-workers used.
But after two years on the job, Harris, now 41, quit in 1987 and filed a federal lawsuit accusing her boss of ignoring repeated requests to stop harassing her sexually.
After six years and several layers of the court system, the Tennessee woman's case - argued this week before the U.S. Supreme Court - is expected to change the way sexual harassment cases are decided. The ruling could affect virtually every workplace in the nation. It also may define, once and for all, the point at which sexual comments and tasteless jokes on the job constitute illegal sexual harassment.
"All she wanted was an apology, reimbursement for lost wages, and her old job back with a guarantee that the harassment would stop," said Irwin Venick, her attorney. "Teresa has never wanted to be a cause or a celebrity."
Her actions have grabbed the attention of employment discrimination experts and women's rights groups across the country.
"This is the case that will likely set the standard in sexual harassment cases for decades to come," said Michael Maslanka, a Dallas lawyer who specializes in employment discrimination.
Whether Harris likes it or not, her name is about to join the ranks of Roe and Wade and Hardwick and McCleskey - all ordinary people whose names, mentioned in court, evoke legal precedent.
The simple question the justices will attempt to answer over the next few months of deliberations: Does a woman have to prove she has been severely psychologically injured before she can win damages in a sexual harassment lawsuit?
If the Supreme Court says no, as Harris thinks it should, it would become much easier for women who are victims to prove their cases. However, if the justices say psychological injury must be shown, legal activists predict a drop in the number of employment discrimination cases filed and a demeaning of women in the workplace.
"If this standard is upheld and made the law of the land, it will be devastating to women and their ability to do a job without being victimized," said Anne Clark of the National Organization for Women's Legal Defense Fund.
"This case comes down to the issue: Should the focus in sexual harassment cases be the victim or should it be the conduct?" she said. "Obviously, we believe it should be the abusive conduct, not the woman or victim."
It is the first time the Supreme Court has considered a sexual harassment dispute since the issue captured the nation's attention during Senate confirmation hearings in 1991 for one of the court's members, Justice Clarence Thomas.
At the hearings, law professor Anita Hill accused Thomas of sexually harassing her while she worked for him in the federal government. He denied the allegation and was confirmed by the Senate.
Current law on what victims of sexual harassment must prove is confusing, vague and differs according to what part of the country a person lives in. In the South and Midwest, the federal courts have required women, for example, to demonstrate how they have been injured psychologically. Judges in the West and Northeast have not set such a standard.
The last time the Supreme Court took a serious look at sexual harassment was 1986, when it ruled that women must prove the advances were unwelcome, that the conduct was sex-based and that the conduct was so severe and pervasive that it altered the victim's work conditions and produced a hostile work environment.
Since 1986, some federal courts, including those governing Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee, have added the psychological injury requirement.
The significance of the case became apparent when 10 national legal organizations filed motions in support of Harris, including the EEOC.
In her lawsuit, Harris claims that her boss, Charles Hardy, president of Forklift Systems Inc. in Nashville, repeatedly directed sexual innuendos and crude language toward her in front of other employees.
"He would drop things on the floor and ask me to pick it up, suggest ways I should dress that would better expose my legs and breasts," she said in court documents. "He asked me if I had sex with my clients to get their business and suggested that he and I have an affair even though he knew I was married.
"He said we should go to the Holiday Inn to negotiate my raise," she said. Harris said the consistent harassment caused to her to drink excessively and "cry all the time."
Hardy, according to court records and his attorney, does not deny making any of the remarks, but claims they were all meant as jokes and nothing more.
"Two or three times a week, she would join Mr. Hardy and the other men and conduct herself as just one of the boys," said Stan Chernau, Hardy's attorney. "She always enjoyed the camaraderie and would herself utilize off-color language. She put herself in this situation."
by CNB