An employer cannot be held liable for the sexual harassment of an employee by the employee’s supervisor.

Question

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

Under federal law (Title VII), an employer can be held liable for sexual harassment by a supervisor because supervisors act as agents of the employer and can exercise authority over employment conditions.

1. Relevant knowledge points and concepts:
- Vicarious liability: employers are responsible for acts of their agents (supervisors) in the scope of employment.
- Two categories from Supreme Court precedent (Faragher v. City of Boca Raton and Burlington Industries v. Ellerth): (a) harassment that culminates in a tangible employment action (e.g., firing, demotion, undesirable reassignment) makes the employer strictly liable; (b) harassment that creates a hostile work environment without a tangible employment action allows the employer to raise an affirmative defense if it exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct harassment and the employee unreasonably failed to use the employer’s policies.

2. Step‑by‑step reasoning:
- Step 1: Determine whether the harasser is a supervisor. If so, the law treats the conduct as coming from management.
- Step 2: Ask whether there was a tangible employment action. If yes, employer liability follows automatically.
- Step 3: If no tangible action, consider whether the employer can prove the two elements of the Faragher/Ellerth affirmative defense: (a) reasonable preventive/corrective measures were in place and (b) the employee unreasonably failed to use them or suffered despite using them.
- Step 4: If the employer cannot establish the defense, it remains liable for the supervisor’s harassment.

3. Intermediate legal application steps:
- Supervisor = agent with power over employment conditions → potential strict liability when tangible action exists.
- No tangible action → evaluate employer’s preventive/corrective measures and employee’s response.

4. Why the correct answer is correct:
Because courts regularly hold employers liable for supervisor sexual harassment under the standards above, it is incorrect to say employers cannot be held liable.

5. Why the other option is incorrect:
The “True” option would assert blanket immunity for employers, which contradicts Title VII jurisprudence and the Supreme Court’s rulings that impose liability in many supervisor‑harassment scenarios.

6. Conclusion:
Therefore the correct answer is False, matching the provided answer.

An employer cannot be held liable for the sexual harassment of an employee by the employee’s supervisor.True/False

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