Christian v. Umpqua Bank, No. 18-35522 (9th Cir. 2020)
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The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment for the Bank on plaintiff's claim of gender harassment under Title VII and the Washington Law Against Discrimination. Plaintiff, a former employee of the Bank, alleged that a bank customer stalked and harassed her in her workplace and that the Bank failed to take effective action to address the harassment.
The panel held that to establish sex discrimination under a hostile work environment theory, a plaintiff must show she was subjected to sex-based harassment that was sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of employment, and that her employer is liable for this hostile work environment. Because the panel concluded that a trier of fact could find that the harassment altered the conditions of plaintiff's employment and created an abusive working environment, it turned to the question of the Bank's liability. In this case, there is more than enough evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact as to the sufficiency of the Bank's response. Because a jury reasonably could conclude that the Bank ratified or acquiesced in the customer's harassment, the panel held that the district court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of the Bank. The panel remanded for further proceedings.
Court Description: Employment Discrimination. The panel reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of defendant Umpqua Bank on claims of gender harassment brought under Title VII and the Washington Law Against Discrimination by a former Umpqua employee who alleged that a bank customer stalked and harassed her in her workplace and that Umpqua failed to take effective action to address the harassment. The panel held that to establish sex discrimination under a hostile work environment theory, a plaintiff must show she was subjected to sex-based harassment that was sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of employment, and that her employer is liable for this hostile work environment. The panel concluded that a trier of fact could find that the harassment altered the conditions of plaintiff’s employment, and the district court erred in failing to consider harassing incidents together, in declining to consider incidents in which plaintiff did not have any direct, personal interactions with the customer, and in neglecting to consider record evidence of interactions between the customer and third persons. The panel further concluded that there were genuine issues of material fact whether Umpqua either ratified or acquiesced in the harassment by failing to take prompt, appropriate, and effective action. CHRISTIAN V. UMPQUA BANK 3 The panel reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment and remanded for further proceedings. It addressed plaintiff’s retaliation claims in a concurrently filed memorandum disposition.
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