In addressing a matter of first impression in this circuit, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania held in Speed v. WES Health System, No. 14-0286, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23818 (E.D. Pa. Feb. 26, 2015), that an employee does not “forfeit her retaliation rights under [Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964] for physically defending herself against a sexual advance after an employer fails to take corrective measures about a hostile work environment.”

An Employee Is Sexually Harassed

Shameka Speed was hired by WES Health System as a behavioral health worker in February 2012. As part of her job duties, she was required to work in close physical proximity to Macon Garway, WES’s clinical coordinator. According to her second amended complaint, in May 2012, Garway began to sexually harass Speed by “making sexually suggestive and lewd comments, gestures, and innuendoes toward” her. “The harassment [Speed] allegedly suffered was overtly sexual, anatomically specific, and crude,” the opinion said. Almost on a daily basis, Garway made sexual remarks to Speed and suggested to her that the two engage in sexual relations. Sometimes, Garway made explicit sexual reference to Speed’s body parts and would point to Speed’s private areas or his own private parts and make sexually explicit remarks toward Speed. Speed alleged that “she never encouraged this behavior in any way, but instead communicated to Garway that she found his conduct repugnant and offensive,” the opinion said.

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