United States Post Offices Has Sexual Harassment Lawsuit Dismissed
The following federal case, 3:07-CV-410-H, illustrates how difficult it can be to prevail in a case of sexual harassment or constructive discharge. Shironda McCloud filed a claim against the United States Postal Service ("USPS") alleging sexual harassment and constructive discharge. Constructive discharge occurs when an employee quits their job but claims they had to quit because the working conditions were so unbearable that a reasonable person would not continue to work in those conditions. Constructive discharge differs from retaliation in that, the employee quits in a constructive discharge case whereas an employee is fired in a retaliation case--or the employee may be the subject of some other negative job action.
The allegations in the complaint were that McCloud began working for the USPS and her immediate supervior, Mr. Purifoy did the following over the course of two days: stared at Plaintiff; made comments that Plaintiff was beautiful; danced around Plaintiff in an awkward manner; told Plaintiff, "I'll give you Friday off if you go out to the club with me;" gave Plaintiff Thursday and Friday off and grabbed Plaintiff's wrist when she reached for her time card. The complaint was based on those six incidents over a two day period.
McCloud told management about what happened, they investigated and removed Purifoy from managing her. Over the next two months McCloud claims to have seen Purifoy at work a few times but that he never spoke to her and that he had no work control over her--yet she quit her job claiming she could not even look at him without feeling wierd. The court found that this did not rise to the level of constructive discharge.
This case is a good example of a bad case of sexual harassment and constructive discharge. The sexual harassment was minor, lasted two days and the harassor was immediately removed from his supervisory position once the victim reported the sexual harassment. Her claim to constructive discharge just doesn't make sense and doesn't seem reasonable given the facts.
