Question

What lessons can a department learned from the Faragher V Boca Raton, and what could have been done differently, in hindsight, as officials in charge?

Answer 1

Faragher V Boca Raton case

About of the case--

• Beth Ann Faragher worked as an ocean lifeguard of the Parks and Recreation Department of the City of Boca Raton.
• She brought an action against the City of Boca Raton and her immediate supervisors.
• Her charges against the supervisors were that they had created a sexually hostile atmosphere by repeatedly subjecting her and other female lifeguards to inappropriate touching, by making lewd remarks and crude comments, and by speaking of women in offensive terms.
• The city argued that it cannot be held liable as they are not able to control the personal actions of its employees.

Verdict-

• The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Faragher.
• The city of Boca Raton was made liable for the actions of its employees under the Civil Rights Act 1964.
• The Supreme Court disagreed with the city’s stance as it did not provide a safe environment and had no systems in place to keep a watch on the actions and behaviors of their employees.
• Supreme Court ruled- An employer may be liable for supervisory employees whose sexual harassment of subordinates results in “a hostile work environment amounting to job discrimination.”
• The court also held that an employer could make an affirmative defense in situations which confirms two conditions—

1. Employers must have exercised reasonable care to prevent or has acted promptly to correct any sexually harassing behavior of its employees.

And

2. Victimized employees failed to take advantage of any preventive or corrective opportunities provided by the employer.

What lessons can a department learn from the Faragher V Boca Raton?

Lessons a department can learn from the Faragher V Boca Raton case are following—

1. It is the duty of the department to provide a healthy workplace environment for all its employees.
2. A workplace should have means and systems that keep a proper check on the actions and behavior of employees. If any action is found to be worthy of a doubt should be taken seriously and suitable corrective action should be taken promptly.
3. Sexual harassment policy should be implemented and followed strictly. it should be distributed to every employee of the department. Both regularized and contractual employee should be given the policy in writing.
4. Head of the department has a greater responsibility to keep a check on its employee activities. Therefore it is utmost important that the head should remain well informed and aware of any complaints or inappropriate activities taking place in the department.
5. Any corrective step taken should be for the benefit of the victimized employee and should be effective enough to root out the problem completely.
6. Discriminatory or sexually hostile work environment hampers the overall productivity of the department. Quality of work suffers resulting in poor results. To create a healthy workplace environment is a responsibility of both employer and employee.

What could have been done differently, in hindsight, as officials in charge?

1. Boca Raton had a sexual harassment policy which was never distributed to the lifeguards.

Marine section of the city should have widely circulated the policy. This must have given a policy base to Faragher to raise her voice.

2. She mentioned the incidents to another male supervisor but nothing was taken seriously.

If a city had a proper complaint redressal mechanism, then her genuine complaints could have been investigated and preventive action could have been taken.

Since supervisors were agents of the city, any complaint made to them brought the issue in the knowledge of the city. The city should have made timely intervention to stop sexual harassment of women lifeguards.

[In case of Faragher one of the supervisors reportedly said to Faragher, “Date me or clean the toilets for a year.” This all amounts to sexual harassment!]