David Benjamin Oppenheimer, Exacerbating the Exasperating: Title VII Liability of Employers for Sexual Harassment Committed by Their Supervisors (1995)

David Benjamin Oppenheimer, Exacerbating the Exasperating: Title VII Liability of Employers for Sexual Harassment Committed by Their Supervisors (1995)

“This Article examines and criticizes the courts’ failure to uniformly impose vicarious liability on employers in cases involving sexual harassment by supervisors, and considers the confusing rules applied by the federal courts and the EEOC when determining employer liability for sexual harassment. It then compares federal law to the state law of California, which imposes absolute vicarious liability on employers for all on-the-job sexual harassment by supervisors (the “California Rule”). This Article concludes that the federal courts should adopt the California Rule as the proper application of Title VII. Should the courts fail to do so, Congress should amend Title VII to require the California Rule.”