Store Owner Can Sue Client Co. Over Manager's Claimed Pressure for Sex, Appeals Court Says
The female owner of a New Jersey tire store has a viable quid-pro-quo sexual harassment claim concerning her allegations that a male manager of a rental-equipment store customer withheld business after she refused to have sex with him, a state appeals court has ruled.
Applying a public accommodations provision of the state Law Against Discrimination to Eileen Totorello’s claims that a United Rentals North America manager pressured her for sex, groped her and withheld business when she didn’t give in to his demands, a three-judge panel ruled that the statute provides a cause of action concerning such alleged business-to-business misconduct, reports the New Jersey Law Journal.
Reversing a dismissal by a Middlesex County Superior Court judge, the panel said Totorello can continue with her sexual harassment and retaliation case against the rental company. The law journal provides a link to last week’s 10-page Appellate Division opinion (PDF).
The applicable language in the statute makes it unlawful to “refuse to buy from, sell to, lease from or to, license, contract with, or trade with, provide goods, services or information to, or otherwise do business with any other person” based on an individual’s gender or any other characteristic protected under the statute, according to the legal publication.
A company spokesman says United Rental believes the trial judge got it right and is considering all options including a potential appeal to the state supreme court.
But attorney Elizabeth Zuckerman, who represents the plaintiff, says the appellate ruling is “a very straightforward application” of the statutory public accommodations provision, N.J.S.A. 10:5-12(l), which “has been overlooked by most of us for many years.” Ordinarily, plaintiffs making employment discrimination claims sue under 10:5-12(a).
In addition to saying that the plain language of the statute makes such business-to-business conduct actionable and finding no merit to a defense argument that the claimed misconduct by the manager had nothing to do with the plaintiff’s gender, the appellate panel also said public policy supports their view of the law.
Otherwise, the alleged conduct, “if legally permitted, would stand as a barrier to women’s ability to do business on an equal footing with men,” writes Judge Susan Reisner in the panel’s opinion. “Construing N.J.S.A. 10:5-12(l) to prohibit such opprobrious conduct is consistent with the legislature’s intent to eliminate sex discrimination in contracting.”
