When we do the sexual harassment training in a group of men and women; its interesting, you often have a very different view of this case between the men and the women.
But basically the case was as follows: it occurred in a bank, and there was the bank manager and a teller, and the bank manager had sex with this teller, I believe by their own testimony, one-hundred-and-forty-something times. They testified that they had consensual sex something in the order of one-hundred-and- forty times, which in any event, that’s what they testified to.
And then she sued claiming, that notwithstanding the number of sexual encounters that were allegedly consensual, she sued claiming sexual harassment when ultimately she was terminated. And so a number of people looked at that case and thought, well how in the heck can they possibly bring a claim? I mean they had sex like one-hundred-and-forty times, and it seems like there was a consensual relationship.
And when you ask that question to the audience when you do sexual harassment training, you get an interesting divide.
A number of people will say, wait a second, one hundred and forty six times and he’s the branch manager? To what extent was it really consent, and was it forced? And that’s exactly the line the court took. The court said, we don’t really necessarily believe that it was consensual because of the power differences. Because you had a supervisor who had the power to fire her, it’s not clear that she really consented to the sex willingly anyway.
So the court said, we’re willing to permit the claim to go forward even though there was a claim of consent, because it’s not clear that with the power difference, that was really consent.
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For more information, email Mike@Accelerate-LD.com.
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