Takeaway: The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a decision that dismissed a harassment claim against apparel wholesaler S&S Activewear for creating a sexually hostile work environment by letting employees and managers play sexually graphic, violent and misogynistic music in one of its warehouses.
The eight plaintiffs were former warehouse employees of S&S: seven women and one man. According to the plaintiffs, S&S permitted its managers and employees to play songs that disparaged women and used offensive terms about women at its Reno, Nev., warehouse. These included a song by Too $hort that glorified prostitution and a song by Eminem that described extreme violence against women. The music was blasted from commercial-strength speakers placed throughout the warehouse, overpowering operational background noise and being nearly impossible to escape.
Sometimes employees placed the speakers on forklifts and drove around the warehouse, making it more difficult to predict, let alone evade, the music's reach. In turn, the music allegedly served as a catalyst for abusive conduct by male employees, who frequently pantomimed sexually graphic gestures, yelled obscenities, made sexually explicit remarks and openly shared pornographic videos. Although the music was particularly demeaning toward women, who made up roughly half the warehouse's workforce, some male employees also took offense. Despite almost daily complaints, S&S management defended the music as...
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