Background
During the fall of 1982, Dianna Janzen and Tracy Govereau were both employed as waitresses at Pharos restaurant in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Tommy Grammas, a cook at the restaurant, began making sexual advances to Janzen. She repeatedly made it clear that the advances were not welcome, nonetheless they continued. When Janzen approached Eleftherois Anastasiadis, the manager of the restaurant, he said, "if it's about Tommy, I can't do anything about it." Eventually, the advances were replaced with uncooperative and threatening behaviour. When Anastasiadis was approached about it he refused to act on it and instead fired the women.
The women sued Platy Enterprises Ltd., the owner of Phraos restaurant, as well as Tommy, under section 6(1) of the Manitoba Human Rights Act , for violating their right to equal opportunity by firing them because of their sex.
The Manitoba Human Rights Tribunal held that the women had been subject to sexual harassment on the basis of sex and so the restaurant owners were in violation of section 6(1) of the Act. The Court of Queen's Bench upheld the decision.
The Manitoba Court of Appeal overturned the Court of Queen's Bench. The court found that sexual harassment was not considered discrimination on the basis of sex and that the employer could not be held vicariously liable of the conduct of the employee.
In United States labor law, a hostile work environment exists when one's behavior within a workplace creates an environment that is difficult or uncomfortable for another person to work in, due to illegal discrimination. Common complaints in sexual harassment lawsuits include fondling, suggestive remarks, sexually-suggestive photos displayed in the workplace, use of sexual language, or off-color jokes. Small matters, annoyances, and isolated incidents are usually not considered to be statutory violations of the discrimination laws. For a violation to impose liability, the conduct must create a work environment that would be intimidating, hostile, or offensive to a reasonable person. An employer can be held liable for failing to prevent these workplace conditions, unless it can prove that it attempted to prevent the harassment and that the employee failed to take advantage of existing harassment counter-measures or tools provided by the employer.
Sexual harassment is a type of harassment involving the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the unwelcome and inappropriate promises of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. Sexual harassment includes a range of actions from verbal transgressions to sexual abuse or assault. Harassment can occur in many different social settings such as the workplace, the home, school, churches, etc. Harassers or victims may be of any sex or gender.
Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, 523 U.S. 75 (1998), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court. The case arose out of a suit for sex discrimination by a male oil-rig worker, who claimed that he was repeatedly subjected to sexual harassment by his male co-workers with the acquiescence of his employer. The Court held that the protection of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 against workplace discrimination "because of... sex" applied to harassment in the workplace between members of the same sex.
The Civil Rights Act of 1991 is a United States labor law, passed in response to United States Supreme Court decisions that limited the rights of employees who had sued their employers for discrimination. The Act represented the first effort since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to modify some of the basic procedural and substantive rights provided by federal law in employment discrimination cases. It provided the right to trial by jury on discrimination claims and introduced the possibility of emotional distress damages and limited the amount that a jury could award. It added provisions to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protections expanding the rights of women to sue and collect compensatory and punitive damages for sexual discrimination or harassment.
Freedom of religion in Canada is a constitutionally protected right, allowing believers the freedom to assemble and worship without limitation or interference.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in Canada are some of the most extensive in the Americas and in the world. Same-sex sexual activity was made lawful in Canada on June 27, 1969, when the Criminal Law Amendment Act was brought into force upon royal assent. In a landmark decision in 1995, Egan v Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada held that sexual orientation is constitutionally protected under the equality clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In 2005, Canada was the fourth country in the world, and the first in the Americas, to implement same-sex marriage nationwide.
Employment discrimination law in the United States derives from the common law, and is codified in numerous state, federal, and local laws. These laws prohibit discrimination based on certain characteristics or "protected categories." The United States Constitution also prohibits discrimination by federal and state governments against their public employees. Discrimination in the private sector is not directly constrained by the Constitution, but has become subject to a growing body of federal and state law, including the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Federal law prohibits discrimination in a number of areas, including recruiting, hiring, job evaluations, promotion policies, training, compensation and disciplinary action. State laws often extend protection to additional categories or employers.
Sexual orientation discrimination is discrimination based on sexual orientation and/or sexual behaviour.
Pearce v Mayfield Secondary School Governing Body and Advocate General for Scotland v MacDonald [2003] UKHL 34; [2003] IRLR 512 is a UK labour law case concerning sexuality and sex discrimination. It was decided before the new Employment Equality Regulations 2003.
Human rights in Canada have come under increasing public attention and legal protection since World War II. Prior to that time, there were few legal protections for human rights. The protections which did exist focused on specific issues, rather than taking a general approach to human rights.
A protected group, protected class (US), or prohibited grounds (Canada) is a category by which people qualified for special protection by a law, policy, or similar authority. In Canada and the United States, the term is frequently used in connection with employees and employment. Where illegal discrimination on the basis of protected group status is concerned, a single act of discrimination may be based on more than one protected class. For example, discrimination based on antisemitism may relate to religion, ethnicity, national origin, or any combination of the three; discrimination against a pregnant woman might be based on sex, marital status, or both.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in the Marshall Islands may face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Same-sex sexual activity has been legal in the Marshall Islands since 2005, and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity has been outlawed in all areas since 2019. Despite this, households headed by same-sex couples are not eligible for the same legal protections available to opposite-sex married couples, as same-sex marriage and civil unions are not recognized.
Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228 (1989), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court on the issues of prescriptive sex discrimination and employer liability for sex discrimination. The employee, Ann Hopkins, sued her former employer, the accounting firm Price Waterhouse. She argued that the firm denied her partnership because she did not fit the partners' idea of what a female employee should look and act like. The employer failed to prove that it would have denied her partnership anyway, and the Court held that constituted sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The significance of the Supreme Court's ruling was twofold. First, it established that gender stereotyping is actionable as sex discrimination. Second, it established the mixed-motive framework that enables employees to prove discrimination when other, lawful reasons for the adverse employment action exist alongside discriminatory motivations or reasons.
LGBT employment discrimination in the United States is illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity is encompassed by the law's prohibition of employment discrimination on the basis of sex. Prior to the landmark cases Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia and R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2020), employment protections for LGBT people were patchwork; several states and localities explicitly prohibit harassment and bias in employment decisions on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity, although some only cover public employees. Prior to the Bostock decision, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) interpreted Title VII to cover LGBT employees; the EEOC determined that transgender employees were protected under Title VII in 2012, and extended the protection to encompass sexual orientation in 2015.
Bundy v. Jackson, 641 F.2d 934, was a D.C. Circuit opinion, written by Judge Skelly Wright, that held that workplace sexual harassment could constitute employment discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth, 524 U.S. 742 (1998), is a landmark employment law case of the United States Supreme Court holding that employers are liable if supervisors create a hostile work environment for employees. Ellerth also introduced a two-part affirmative defense allowing employers to avoid sex discrimination liability if they follow best practices. Ellerth is often considered alongside Faragher.
Sexual harassment in the workplace in US labor law has been considered a form of discrimination on the basis of sex in the United States since the mid-1970s. There are two forms of sexual harassment recognized by United States law: quid pro quo sexual harassment and behavior that creates a hostile work environment. It has been noted that a number of the early sexual harassment cases were brought by African American women and girls.
Altitude Express, Inc. v. Zarda, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), was a landmark United States Supreme Court civil rights case which ruled that under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 employees could not be discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Kimberly Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College, 853 F.3d 339, was a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in which the Court held that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The ruling made the Seventh Circuit the first federal appeals court to find that sexual orientation is a protected class under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), was a landmark United States Supreme Court civil rights case in which the Court held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees against discrimination because they are gay or transgender.
