Joseph Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Incorporated, et al. (523 U.S. 75)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 4, 1998 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 523 U.S. 75 · 118 S. Ct. 998
- Decided
- March 4, 1998
- Term
- October Term 1997
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Scalia
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court. This case presents the question whether workplace harassment can violate Title VII’s prohibition against “diserimina-t[ion]... because of... sex,” 42 U. S. C. §2000e-2(a)(I), when the harasser and the harassed employee are of the same sex. I The District Court having granted summary judgment for respondents, we must assume the facts to be as alleged by petitioner Joseph Oncale. The precise details are irrelevant to the legal point we must decide, and in the interest of both brevity and dignity we shall describe them only generally. In late October 1991, Oncale was working for respondent Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., on a Chevron U. S. A., Inc., oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. He was employed as a roustabout on an eight-man crew which included respondents John Lyons, Danny Pippen, and Brandon Johnson. Lyons, the crane operator, and Pippen, the driller, had supervisory authority, App. 41, 77, 43. On several occasions, Oncale was forcibly subjected to sex-related, humiliating actions against him by Lyons, Pippen, and Johnson in the presence of the rest of the crew. Pippen and Lyons also physically assaulted Oncale in a sexual manner, and Lyons threatened him with rape. Oneale’s complaints to supervisory personnel produced no remedial action; in fact, the company’s Safety Compliance Clerk, Valent Hohen, told Oncale that…
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