Employment & Labor Law
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Speedway SuperAmerica, LLC v. DuPont
30 Fla. L. Weekly D1641
The trial court erred in denying the appellant employer's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict in the appellee employee's sexual harassment and hostile work environment claim because the evidence is insufficient to establish that the harassment was severe or pervasive enough to affect the terms and conditions of her employment and create a hostile work environment. The appellee complained to her supervisors on several occasions about a male coworker who touched her inappropriately, grabbed her, and made numerous inappropriate comments over an eight or nine-week period. The appellate court held that the flirtatious conduct did not rise to the level of discriminatory "conditions of employment" because flirtation is not sexual harassment. Furthermore, physical threats or conduct must be extensive, longlasting, unredressed, uninhibited, and permeate the plaintiff's work environment to be actionable. The offending conduct must be subjectively perceived to be extreme and hostile enough that an objectively reasonable person would find the conduct hostile or abusive. The four facts that are analyzed in determining if the harassment objectively altered the terms and conditions of the employee's employment are: (1) frequency of conduct, (2) severity of conduct, (3) whether the conduct is physically threatening or humiliating or a mere offensive utterance, and (4) whether the conduct unreasonably interferes with the employee's job performance. While no minimum number of incidents establishes that an employee is in a hostile work environment, the conduct directed at the appellee was not sufficiently severe to be discriminatory and does not create a hostile work environment.
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