Quick Hit: Maine Liability for Sexual Harassment

Augusta, ME (WorkersCompensation.com) -- If you're thinking about torts and on-the-job injuries, you're probably also thinking about exclusive remedy rules in most states.

What an exclusive remedy rule does is prevent someone from suing for a work-related injury, since the "grand bargain" is that such an injury would be covered by workers' compensation.

However, there are always exceptions to rules, and in Maine one of those exceptions applies to sexual harassment an employee experiences on the job.

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So, here's the rule:

+ An employee, supervisor, officer, or director of an employer is liable for: 1) sexual harassment; 2) sexual assault; or 3) an intentional tort related to sexual harassment or sexual assault.

But what about the employer?

Maine law states that the sexual harassment by an employee does not impose liability on the employer. However, employees might have recourse against employers under civil rights laws and may consider brining an action alleging employment discrimination under the Maine Human Rights Act or Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Workers' Comp 101: In Knox v. Combined Ins. Co. of America, 542 A.2d 363 (Me. 1988), an employee sued her employer for mental injuries caused by sexual harassment committed upon her by her supervisor. Maine's top court sent back the decision of the lower court, which held that sexual harassment was not covered by the state's Workers' Compensation Act and thus could not be subject to the act's exclusivity bar. Instead, the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine reasoned, "Injuries resulting from acts of sexual harassment are not excluded from the Act's coverage solely because of the sexual nature of the harassment."
In the court's view, sexual harassment was indistinguishable from other types of assault as far as workers' compensation law was concerned, but the connection between work and the injury had to be fleshed out at trial.
"Like other assaults, sexual assaults constitute a violent invasion of a person's bodily integrity, and under the right set of facts, mental or physical injuries from a sexual assault could be compensable injuries under the Act," the court wrote. "Although claims for an employee's injuries resulting from sexual assaults and sexual harassment by a supervisor may be compensable under the Act, depending on whether there is a sufficient relationship between the injury and the employment so as to make the injury arise out of and in the course of the employment, that uniquely factual determination must be made by the trial court."

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