Case Study: Faragher V. City Of Boca Raton

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Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775 (1998), was a United States Supreme Court case that revolved on the liabilities of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The case came into effect after petitioner Beth Ann Faragher resigned as a lifeguard concerning the City of Boca Raton after bringing to the attention of the city that her supervisors, Bill Terry and David Silverman created a sexually hostile atmosphere at work and committed acts of sexual harassment. The sexually hostile atmosphere was created through lewd remarks and offensive discussion about women in terms of vulgar slurs concerning oral sex and female issues.
The District Court ended up ruling that “Terry and Silverman were acting outside of the scope of their employment and solely to further their own personal needs” and ruled in Faragher’s favor. While, the the eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals overturned it and came into the conclusion that the City’s relationship with the supervisors’ did not advocate the treatment towards their co-workers, so the City should be not liable since the City hardly had any distinct knowledge about the harassment initiated by each of the supervisors. Furthermore, they explained that the City cannot be charged for “constructive knowledge” because the sexual harassment policy failed to be known within the lifeguard community. The court claimed that they did not find sufficient
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The court said that if the issue was serious, then Faragher should have told the City earlier to address it. As a