Celebrating Women's History

Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson: 1986

Appellants: Meritor Savings Bank, FSB and Sidney Taylor
Appellees: Mechelle Vinson et al.
Chief Lawyers for Appellees: Patricia J. Barry and Catharine A. MacKinnon
Chief Lawyer for Appellants: F. Robert Troll, Jr.
Appellants' Claim: That the Court of Appeals erred in ruling that "hostile environment" sex harassment was a violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act
Justices: Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, Thurgood Marshall, Sandra Day O'Connor, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William H. Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, Byron R. White
Place: Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision: June 19, 1986
Decision: A claim of "hostile environment" sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination actionable under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Significance: This decision provided a clearer definition of what constituted sexual harassment on the job and under what circumstances the employer could be held liable for the actions of subordinates.

In 1974, Mechelle Vinson joined the Capital City Federal Savings and Loan Association, located in Washington D.C. Sidney Taylor hired and supervised her. Between 1974 and 1978, Vinson progressed from teller-trainee, to teller, to head teller, and then to assistant branch manager, all under Taylor's supervision. Vinson's promotions had been based exclusively on merit, according to court records.

In September 1978, Vinson took an indefinite sick leave. The following month, the bank fired her for her "excessive use of that leave." In 1980, Vinson sued Taylor and the bank, claiming that she had "constantly been subjected to sexual harassment" by Taylor in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination against women and other groups. She sought injunctive relief and compensatory and punitive damages against both the bank and Taylor, plus attorney's fees.

He Said, She Said
During the bench trial before the district court, Vinson testified that Taylor behaved in a fatherly manner until her teller-trainee and probationary period ended. When Vinson became a teller, Taylor asked her to dinner. During the meal, he asked her to join him for sex at a motel. After numerous occasions and as many refusals — and because she was afraid of being fired if she didn't comply — she complied with Taylor's request.

Vinson testified that for two-and-a-half-years Taylor continued to press her for sexual favors. Submitting to demands made during and following work hours, she had intercourse with him between 40 and 50 times, sometimes under threat of physical force. Vinson also testified that Taylor fondled her — and other female employees — in the presence of coworkers, trailed her into the women's restroom, and exposed himself to her. She did not use the bank's formal complaint procedure, which required her to report the harassment to her supervisor — Taylor himself.

Taylor denied all of Vinson's claims. He said they had never had sexual intercourse. He also claimed never to have requested sexual relations, made suggestive comments, or fondled Vinson. For its part, Capital City Federal Savings and Loan Association denied that any of these things happened and, in any case, said it had not known about, consented to, or approved any such behavior by Taylor.

Round One
In 1980, the district court found that if there were "an intimate or sexual relationship" between Vinson and Taylor during her employment, it was "voluntary" and had no bearing on her promotions or continued employment. She "was not the victim of sexual harassment [or] . . . sexual discrimination."

Despite its finding that Title VII had not been violated, the court examined the issue of employer responsibility. The court pointed out that the bank had a formal anti-discrimination policy and that neither Vinson nor any of her co-workers had ever filed a sexual harassment complaint against Taylor. It concluded that "the bank was without notice and cannot be held liable for the alleged actions of Taylor."

Round Two
In 1985, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed the lower court's decision. Referring to its decision in a 1981 case, Bundy v. Jackson, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) Guidelines on Discrimination Because of Sex (1985), the appeals court stressed that two forms of sexual harassment were described in Title VII.

The first involved a demand of sexual favors in return for continued employment or other employment-related benefits. The second was sexual harassment sufficient to create a "hostile" or offensive environment, independent of any economic impact. The district court had addressed only the first type of sexual harassment claim, while "Vinson's grievance was clearly of the [hostile environment] type."

The appeals court also questioned the district court's conclusion that any sexual activity between Vinson and her supervisor "was a voluntary one." If "Taylor made Vinson's toleration of sexual harassment a condition of her employment," her compliance "had no materiality whatsoever."

Finally, the appeals court differed with the district court's ruling on employer responsibility. Referring both to the EEOC Guidelines and to Title VII's specific inclusion of "any agent of such a person" within the definition of "employer," the Appeals Court held that regardless of whether an employer knew or should have known about the sexually harassing conduct of one of its supervisors, that employer was still liable for supervisory sexual harassment under Title VII.

Shortly after this decision, the bank merged with Northern Virginia Savings and Loan Association. The newly-merged bank took the name PSFS Savings Bank FSB.

Round Three
The Supreme Court heard the case on March 25, 1986. Attorney F. Robert Troll defended Taylor and PSFS Savings Bank. Patricia J. Barry argued the case for Vinson. Before the Court reached its decision, PSFS changed its name once again, to Meritor Bank.

For more than a dozen years after the 1964 passage of Title VII, federal courts refused to find that sex harassment was a form of sex discrimination. It was not until 1977 that a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued the first federal court ruling that sex harassment was, in fact, sex discrimination, in Barnes v. Costle . Catharine A. MacKinnon, who had been one of Paulette Barnes' attorneys in that case, joined Barry's legal team to work on behalf of Vinson.

In her brief for the Supreme Court, MacKinnon addressed the fact that Taylor had not accompanied his harassment with the outright threat or promise of economic consequence. Reiterating arguments presented in her 1979 book Sexual Harassment of Working Women, MacKinnon presented "hostile environment" sex discrimination as "on a time line" with quid pro quo sex discrimination (sex in direct exchange for continued employment or other benefit). She argued that female employees frequently became quid pro quo victims when they could no longer endure being "hostile environment" victims and were fired or forced to quit for sudden non-compliance with sexual demands. If hostile environment harassment was not itself a ground for complaint, MacKinnon reasoned, a woman who is harassed "with enough coerciveness, subtlety, suddenness or one-sidedness, while her job is formally undisturbed, . . . is not considered to have been sexually harassed." For a woman to be required to risk her job in order to ensure that her claim became an actionable one, MacKinnon argued, would amount to her having "to bring intensified injury upon herself in order to demonstrate that she is injured at all."

On June 19, 1986, Justice William H. Rehnquist delivered the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court's affirmation of the Appeals Court ruling. He first addressed the scope of Title VII's prohibition against sex discrimination in the "terms, conditions, or privileges" of employment. Meritor Savings Bank's contention that the prohibition covered only "'tangible loss' of 'an economic character,' [and] not `purely psychological aspects of the workplace environment'" was rejected.

The Court noted that quid pro quo harassment was not the issue in this case. The guidelines classified offensive behavior as sexual harassment "whether or not it is directly linked to the grant or denial of an economic quid pro quo," if the behavior affects an employee's work performance or makes the environment unworkable. In short, sexual harassment may indeed create a hostile or abusive work environment, and as such is a form of sex discrimination.

Rehnquist quoted a prior case that stated the language of Title VII shows Congress intended "to strike at the entire spectrum of disparate treatment of men and women" in employment. He noted the EEOC's guidelines define sexual harassment as, among other things, "unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature."

Holding that "voluntary" behavior was no defense against a sexual harassment suit, Rehnquist sent the case back to the District Court for consideration of Vinson's "hostile environment" claim. The whole point of any such claim, the court ruled, is that the alleged sexual advances were "unwelcome, . . . not whether her actual participation in sexual intercourse was voluntary."

Hoisted on the EEOC's Petard
As for employer liability, the Court "declined the parties' invitation to issue a definitive rule." Instead, it generally agreed that Congress expected the courts to look to the EEOC's principles "for guidance in this area." Rehnquist noted that the courts had thus "consistently held employers liable for the discriminatory discharges of employees by supervisory personnel, whether or not the employer knew, should have known, or approved of the supervisor's actions." He also pointed out that the EEOC, in its brief in Meritor, supported "a rule that asks whether a victim of sexual harassment had reasonably available an avenue of complaint regarding such harassment and, . . . whether that procedure was reasonably responsible to the employee's complaint."

The Court rejected the lower court's view "that employers are automatically liable for sexual harassment by their supervisors." One way for employers to avoid liability, for example, would be to prove that a sexually harassed employee had reasonable opportunities to take advantage of a good, clear complaint procedure without reprisal, but had failed to do so.

However, Rehnquist stressed, even those employers with anti-discrimination policies would not automatically be deemed innocent. In Vinson's case, sexual harassment was not specifically included in the Bank's formal procedure for reporting alleged discrimination. Moreover, the first step was to complain to one's supervisor, in this case, the alleged perpetrator — an action the complainant was hardly likely to take under these circumstances, the Court recognized.

Justice Thurgood Marshall, joined by Justices William O. Brennan, Harry A. Blackmun, and John Paul Stevens, concurred. On the issue of employer liability, however, these justices would hold the employer responsible if a supervisor of an employee engaged in sexual harassment "regardless of whether the employee gave 'notice' of the offense." As Marshall pointed out, "discrimination is rarely carried out pursuant to a formal vote of a corporation's board of directors."

For Further Reading
Goldstein, Leslie Friedman. The Constitutional Rights of Women: Cases in Law and Social Change, rev. ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989.
Hoff, Joan. Law, Gender and Injustice: A Legal History of U.S. Women. New York: New York University Press, 1991.
MacKinnon, Catharine A. Sexual Harassment of Working Women. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979.
Strebeigh, Fred. "Defining Law on the Feminist Frontier." New York Times, October 6, 1991.

Source: Women's Rights on Trial, 1st Ed., Gale, 1997, p.312.