According to the Tennessee Court of Appeals, St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee was an "equal opportunity oppressor."
In Frye v. St. Thomas Health Services , Joan Frye, an accounting services manager, sued her former employer claiming that she had been subjected to age discrimination and a hostile workplace environment.
Frye allegedly endured "bullying, vicious, vile and vindictive behavior" from her direct supervisor, Catherine Doyle. (When hired, Frye was 54, Doyle was 41.)
Doyle, who "rains a holy terror on those below (her), unless you are within her little clique, which is only people in their 20s and 30s," supposedly favored younger employees by offering them greater pay, allowing them more flexible hours, and socializing with them. In addition, meetings would be held without Frye, she wasn't introduced to management, and was criticized over trivial issues.
After working with Doyle for two years, Frye transferred to a different hospital. Shortly thereafter, Frye left that job suffering from systems related to post-traumatic stress disorder.
During the course of Frye's lawsuit, the Davidson County Circuit Court granted the hospital's request to dismiss the case, finding that Frye had failed to prove an entitlement to relief. On appeal, the Tennessee Court of Appeals agreed, noting as follows:
It is necessary to distinguish between harassment and discriminatory harassment to insure that discrimination laws do not become a general civility code … The fact that a supervisor is mean, hard to get along with, overbearing, belligerent or otherwise hostile and abusive, does not violate civil rights, unless (motivated by one's age, race, sex or other protected class characteristic).
According to that appellate court, because Doyle was an "equal opportunity oppressor, using her intense, dominant, abrupt, rude and hard-nosed management style on all St. Thomas employees," the hospital avoided liability for its supervisor's conduct.
Although these claims can be difficult to establish, there has been some progress with work-relations legislation in the last few years. California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Vermont and Washington, are all endeavoring to end "workplace bullying."
Whether a "workable" definition will be found, or whether this kind of protection will flood our courts with baseless lawsuits, remains to be seen. While that all gets sorted out, we are one nation, indivisible, with liberty and workplace harassment for all!
To download a copy of the Tennessee Court of Appeals' decision, please use this link: Frye v. St. Thomas Health Services