California Employment Law Notes

• Jurisdiction: California,United States
• Author: By Anthony J. Oncidi
• Publication year: 2022
• Citation: Vol. 36 No. 2

CALIFORNIA EMPLOYMENT LAW NOTES

By Anthony J. Oncidi

Anthony J. Oncidi is a partner in and the Co-Chair of the Labor and Employment Department of Proskauer Rose LLP, where he exclusively represents employers and management in all areas of employment and labor law. His telephone number is (310) 284-5690 and his email address is aoncidi@proskauer.com. (Tony has authored this column since 1990.)

MANICURIST CAN PROCEED WITH HOSTILE WORK ENVIRONMENT CLAIM

Fried v. Wynn Las Vegas, 18 F.4th 643 (9th Cir. 2021)

Vincent Fried, a manicurist at a salon in the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, was sexually propositioned by a customer. Fried immediately went to his manager to report the customer's lewd comments. The manager allegedly told Fried to "just go [finish the pedicure] and get it over with." After he finished the pedicure and the customer left, Fried tried to discuss the incident with his manager, who responded that she had a lot of "emails to review" and would discuss the matter at another time.

The district court granted summary judgment for Wynn, dismissing Fried's claim for hostile work environment under Title VII. However, the Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that the manager's lack of response to the harassment may have created a hostile work environment. The Ninth Circuit analyzed evidence of the separate incidents, including the manager's and coworkers' comments (i.e., that Fried should consider finding another job in which the clientele is not mostly female; that...