{"id":37743,"date":"2008-03-26T16:35:41","date_gmt":"2008-03-26T21:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/content.findlaw-admin.com\/ability-legal\/uncategorized\/tennessee-court-upholds-850-000-sexual-harassment-award.html"},"modified":"2008-03-26T16:35:41","modified_gmt":"2008-03-26T21:35:41","slug":"tennessee-court-upholds-850-000-sexual-harassment-award","status":"publish","type":"corporate","link":"https:\/\/corporate.findlaw.com\/litigation-disputes\/tennessee-court-upholds-850-000-sexual-harassment-award.html","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee Court Upholds $850,000 Sexual Harassment Award"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Tennessee Court of Appeals has upheld a verdict of $850,000.00 in a case in which the plaintiff alleged that her supervisor repeatedly propositioned and harassed her, and ultimately raped her on a business trip. The jury awarded $1.2 Million in compensatory and $60,000 in punitive, but the plaintiff accepted the trial court's remittitur of all punitive damages and $350,000 of general damages. The jury determined that the defendants were liable under theories of hostile environment and quid pro quo sexual harassment, and that the supervisor was guilty of outrageous conduct and intentional infliction of emotional distress.<\/p>

The appellate court found the supervisor individually liable under the Tennessee Human Rights Act, on the grounds that the supervisor lied when confronted with the plaintiff's claims of harassment, and therefore aided and abetted the employer in committing discriminatory acts by preventing the employer from taking corrective or remedial action. The court dismissed the quid pro quo action, finding that she suffered no tangible job action as a result of her refusal to submit to the supervisor's advances. She was not demoted nor reassigned, and she received raises and positive job evaluations. Finally, the court determined that the supervisor was guilty of intentional infliction of emotional distress, as his conduct: was intentional; was so outrageous as not to be tolerated by civilized society; and that it resulted in serious mental injury. Steele v. Superior Home Health Care of Chattanooga, Inc.<\/em>, No. 03A01-9709-CH-00395 (Tenn. App. Nov. 10, 1998).
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The Tennessee Court of Appeals has upheld a verdict of $850,000.00 in a case in which the plaintiff alleged that her supervisor repeatedly propositioned and harassed her, and ultimately raped her on a business trip. The jury awarded $1.2 Million in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_stopmodifiedupdate":true,"_modified_date":"","_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false},"corporate_categories":[6523,6522,6525,6520],"class_list":["post-37743","corporate","type-corporate","status-publish","hentry","corporate_categories-litigation-disputes__civil-litigation__business-torts","corporate_categories-litigation-disputes__civil-litigation","corporate_categories-litigation-disputes__civil-litigation__civil-remedies","corporate_categories-litigation-disputes"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/corporate.findlaw.com\/legal-api\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/corporate\/37743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/corporate.findlaw.com\/legal-api\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/corporate"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/corporate.findlaw.com\/legal-api\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/corporate"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/corporate.findlaw.com\/legal-api\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"corporate_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corporate.findlaw.com\/legal-api\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/corporate_categories?post=37743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}