Category: Hostile Work Environment

Danielle Alston, a former Sergeant with the Philadelphia Police Department, sued her immediate superior, Lieutenant Brian Dougherty, and the City of Philadelphia, alleging gender-based hostile-environment because of a sexually offensive text message Dougherty sent Alston. When Alston’s claims were dismissed by a trial court, she appealed to the federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The Court upheld the dismissal of Alston’s lawsuits. The Court began with the proposition that…

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Mark Johnstone, who is white, has been an officer for the Village of Monticello Police Department in New York since 1989 and a lieutenant since 2010. On November 16, 2013, he arrested Gordon Jenkins, described as “a dark skinned natural person,” for driving while intoxicated. While Johnstone was processing Jenkins at the Monticello Police Station, Jenkins called Johnstone and other white officers a “racist,” a “cracker,” a “white mother…

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One area of employment law that has dramatically changed is that of sexual harassment. Owing largely to a series of Supreme Court decisions, what once might be easily accepted as sexually harassing conduct now no longer supports a lawsuit. And so it was with the case of Barbara Davis, a police officer with the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority. Davis brought a sexual harassment lawsuit, and pointed to the conduct…

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