A female employee reported four incidents over two years which involved the same male coworker: grabbing her hair, brushing the back of his hand across her breast in a purported effort to wipe something off her shirt, his responding in an angry and physically threatening manner when she rebuffed his request that they be “more than friends,” and a rumor he allegedly spread that she had performed oral sex on him. In the first three incidents, the manager did not pass the complaints to HR as required and instead investigated and dealt with them himself. In the last incident, the manager did report it to HR, who then launched its investigation; the male employee was subsequently terminated for making a threatening remark in relation to the controversy. The female employee then left her job and filed a hostile work environment claim against the company.
The Eighth Circuit says that the four incidents over the female worker’s two-year period of employment “are insufficient to establish that the work environment was so permeated with discriminatory conduct that it altered a term, condition, or privilege of her employment.” The Court says that even assuming the incidents arose to the level of a hostile work environment, the manager did respond to her complaints, and “it suffices to say that the obligations of an employer under Title VII are not defined by the strictures of its own policy on harassment.” The Court continues: “Although an employer’s failure to adhere to its internal policies may be relevant in some cases, it does not follow that violation of an internal reporting procedure automatically establishes a failure to take appropriate remedial action under federal law. Employers are free to draft harassment policies that are more stringent than Title VII, and they should be permitted to do so without fear that they will incur additional liability as a result of their efforts.” Cross v. Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino
