The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a lower court ruling in favor of the city of Riverview, Mich. in a lawsuit brought by a former employee of the Riverview Fire Department alleging sexual harassment and a hostile work environment created by the deputy chief of that department. You can read the full ruling here.
Plaintiff Dorothy Hensman worked for the Riverview Fire Department for 10 years, the last six weeks of which she worked under Fire Marshall/Deputy Fire Chief Richard Batchelder. Hensman alleged several incidents during those few weeks that she says constituted sexual harassment and created a sexually hostile work environment. The ruling describes those allegations:
First, on October 11, 2005, Hensman attempted to speak with Batchelder about his work. He allegedly claimed that he had not been listening because he was too distracted by how attractive she was. Second, he allegedly complimented her perfume multiple times, asked her what fragrance she was wearing, and continuously “sniffed” her. Third, Hensman claims that Batchelder described her as a “voluptuous,” “well-endowed,” woman on two occasions, one in the context of comparing her to his wife and
mother-in-law. She testified that Batchelder said, “My wife didn’t move here with me and you remind me of her, you are very strong and aggressive and – and very voluptuous.”The fourth incident occurred on October 25, 2005 and was summarized by the district court as follows:
On that date, Batchelder had an evening meeting with the union president and, when he left the fire station to go to the meeting, he mistakenly locked his office, truck and apartment keys in the office. Since Plaintiff was the only other person who had an office key, he called her at home at approximately 11:30 p.m. and asked if she would come to the station and bring her office key so he could get in. Plaintiff told him she would not come to the station and that if he wanted the key he would have to come to her house and get it. Batchelder did go to Plaintiff’s house and Plaintiff, accompanied by her husband and daughter, answered the door wearing a bathrobe. According to Plaintiff, Batchelder apologized for bothering her and her family and as she handed him the key, Batchelder commented, “You look cute in your jammies; I can see what you looked like as a little girl with your messy hair.” The next day, Batchelder came to the office and brought her a bouquet of flowers [and] bagels for breakfast and apologized again for bothering her the night before and for saying she looked cute in her jammies. Plaintiff testified that she was “humiliated” because the firefighters thought it was funny that Batchelder had woken her up in the middle of the night. “Everyone thought it was real funny.”
According to the ruling, Batchelder called Hensman into his office in November 2005 and told her that he sensed some tension between them, that he wanted them to have a good working relationship and asked her what was wrong. She voiced her frustrations with his constant comments about her appearance and about his work habits, which she related to someone having ADD, and he apologized and gave her a hug.
The next day, Hensman was feeling sick and had called in a replacement so she could go home when Batchelder called her into his office and reprimanded her for the way she’d spoken to him the day before, telling her she was “unprofessional, out of line, and disrespectful” toward him. This led to a verbal confrontation where Batchelder allegedly grabbed her arm so hard it left a mark. Hensman filed a complaint against Batchelder the next day.
The human resources department of the city investigated and found the complaint to have no merit. Hensman then filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and got permission to file the suit. The district court ruled that the alleged incidents “were not severe or pervasive and thus did not warrant relief under federal or state anti-discrimination law.” The appeals court has now affirmed that ruling.
Despite the fact that the appeals court listed 10 incidents that they considered sexual comments that agreed were inappropriate in a mere six weeks that the plaintiff and defendant worked together, the panel said that such comments “were not frequent” and therefore did not constitute a hostile work environment.
Judge Clay wrote a dissenting opinion disagreeing with the other two judges on the panel, arguing that the outcome of the case should have been left up to a jury to decide and that the court should not have granted summary judgment and prevented a jury from hearing the case. “Arguably, none of Batchelder’s actions qualify as severe,” wrote Judge Clay, “but the sheer frequency of the incidents, which all took place over a span of less than two months, indicate enough of an ‘ongoing pattern of unwanted conduct and attention’ to survive summary judgment.”
