Lehmann v. Toys R Us

Plaintiff was employed by defendant as a file clerk and subsequently promoted to supervisory positions. Sometime thereafter, defendant hired a new supervisor to the plaintiff. This supervisor started sexually harassing female employees, including plaintiff, through offensive sexual comments and touching. Although plaintiff immediately reported incidents to the supervisor’s boss, she was told to handle the matter herself. Upon continuing to bring incidents to the attention of the manager, plaintiff was told that she was being paranoid. Eventually plaintiff addresses the executive vice president, expressed that she felt she was being forced out of the company, and when she was offered an undesirable transfer as a solution, offered her resignation. The plaintiff sued the defendant for hostile work environment, arguing that its investigation into the harassment was inadequate. To bring a claim for hostile work environment, the plaintiff needed to show: (1) the conduct would not have occurred but for the employee’s gender; (2) the conduct was severe or pervasive enough to make a (3) reasonable woman believe (4) that the conditions of employment are altered and the working environment is hostile or abusive. The court found that even though the defendant had a written policy against sexual harassment, the manager did not keep any records about the investigation, did not document the investigation, and did not question key witnesses about events. The court found that this enabled a hostile work environment, and held the defendant liable.