Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—SEXUAL HARASSMENT—7th Cir.: Municipal employee’s failure to show tangible or adverse action doomed claims, (Jun 25, 2025)

By Kathleen Kapusta, J.D.

“No employee should have to endure the sexual harassment [the employee] endured.”

Despite acknowledging that the sexual harassment endured by a municipal employee for five years was both reprehensible and injurious, the Seventh affirmed the grant of summary judgment against her Title VII quid pro quo and hostile work environment claims. Not only did she fail to show she experienced a tangible or adverse action, she failed to take advantage of the city’s reporting mechanisms during that time and when she finally did report the harassment, the city took responsive and appropriate actions, including compelling the harasser’s resignation (Bankruptcy Estate of Harris v. City of Milwaukee, No. 23-2932 (7th Cir. Jun. 24, 2025)).

As an infrastructure and repair worker for the City of Milwaukee’s Public Works Department, the employee’s job duties included trash removal and other outdoor tasks. According to the employee, from 2012 to 2017, the plant and equipment repair supervisor subjected her to sexual harassment that included touching and grabbing her inappropriately and trying to pressure her into performing sexual acts on him.

No formal report. Although the city had an anti-harassment policy that provided mechanisms for reporting sexual harassment, the employee never filed a formal report until 2017. She claimed, however, that in 2012 she sent an anonymous letter to three individuals, including the department’s personnel compliance manager, hoping that he would investigate. He denied ever receiving the letter.

Attorney letter. The employee also claimed that she told her coworker, who had recently become a crew leader, about the harassment in 2012 but despite the coworker’s efforts, the harassment worsened. In May 2017, after the supervisor purportedly put his hand down her pants, the employee’s attorney sent a letter to the compliance manager, notifying him that the employee would be seeking damages for sexual harassment.

City’s response. Upon receiving the letter, the compliance manager temporarily assigned the employee to the sanitation division, contacted the employee and her attorney to further investigate her claims, and suspended the supervisor. Although no one corroborated her claims, another worker stated that the supervisor had sexually harassed her, and she provided text messages and photos in support. Based on this, the city offered the supervisor the choice to resign or be terminated. He resigned and shortly thereafter, the employee was returned to her position.

Alleged retaliation. When she returned, she alleged, her makeshift desk had been removed, a camera had been installed in the vicinity where she used to work, the crew lead, who had become the new supervisor, stopped talking to her for fear of being recorded, and she was required to pick up trash around department headquarters.

Lower court proceedings. As a result, she sued the city and several defendants alleging claims under Title VII and Section 1983. Because she also filed for bankruptcy, the district court allowed the substitution of her estate as the named plaintiff. The court then granted summary judgment to the city on all claims.

Quid pro quo harassment. Explaining on appeal that the employee’s Title VII quid pro quo claim turned on whether her reaction to the supervisor’s advances affected a tangible aspect of her employment, the Seventh Circuit, agreeing with the court below, found she failed to establish this. Her estate argued that the supervisor threatened to reassign the employee to outdoor work if she did not give in to his advances but even if he had the authority to do that, which the parties disputed, no reasonable juror, the court observed, could find that such an assignment would have affected a tangible aspect of her employment. According to her job description, up to 70 percent of a laborer’s duties involved working outside. Thus, this threat could not constitute a tangible employment action.

Further, the city exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct the harassment. It had an effective anti-harassment policy that the employee had received on at least four occasions, and which provided several ways to seek confidential assistance or file a formal complaint. After receiving the letter from the employee’s attorney, the compliance manager took almost immediate action that culminated in the supervisor’s resignation one month later.

And while the employee claimed she reported the harassment, including telling the crew leader about it in 2012, the crew leader did not assume a supervisory role until 2017. Nor was there any evidence the compliance manager received the anonymous letter the employee allegedly sent. Based on this record, said the court, no reasonable jury could find that the employee took advantage of the city’s reporting mechanisms before 2017, that it acted unreasonably once she reported the harassment, or that she suffered a tangible employment action at the supervisor’s hands.

Hostile work environment. As to the employee’s hostile work environment claim, the court again explained that even assuming the alleged harasser was a supervisor, the estate failed to show there was a tangible employment action affecting the employee and there was evidence to support the city’s Faragher-Ellerth defense.

Assuming the supervisor was a coworker, the estate failed to show the city acted negligently in controlling the working conditions at the department. The estate pointed to three supervisors as examples, including the crew leader, but there was no evidence she was a supervisor in 2012 when the employee told her about the harassment. The estate also claimed that another laborer reported the alleged harasser to two other supervisors, but they did nothing to stop it.

There was evidence, however, that one of those supervisors told the laborer to keep a journal to assist with an investigation. And while she purportedly did, she never shared it with anyone. As to the other supervisor, there was no evidence he actually held a supervisory role. Because no reasonable jury could find on this record a basis for employer liability, the court affirmed summary judgment against this claim.

Retaliation. Addressing next the employee’s Title VII and Section 1983 retaliation claims, the court found no evidence the employee suffered an adverse action. The estate pointed to the employee’s reassignment to trash duty during the investigation of her complaint but observed the court, “an employer’s decision to temporarily separate two workers in the face of sexual harassment allegations is not an adverse employment action.” Although she continued to receive assignments to pick up trash when she returned to her job after the investigation, the crew leader testified that she assigned every employee she supervised to pick up trash and the estate did not refute this testimony.

And while trash pickup and other outdoor tasks may have been new for the employee, these tasks, the court continued, were not outside of her job duties and moving “from one function to another within a job, when nothing guarantees the employee will always remain assigned to the same function, does not amount to an adverse employment action.”

Also rejected was the estate’s assertion that changing the employee’s schedule during her month-long reassignment from 6:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., to 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. was retaliatory. “A reasonable jury,” the court explained, “would not conclude that a temporary one-hour schedule change during a sexual harassment investigation would dissuade a reasonable employee from coming forward with sexual harassment complaints.”

Nor did the removal of the employee’s makeshift desk and the placement of a camera in the vicinity of her workspace amount to adverse actions. There was no evidence she needed a desk to complete her duties, many of which involved outdoor assignments, and the city presented unrefuted evidence surveillance cameras were placed throughout the department. Further, there was no evidence to support the estate’s speculation the city wanted to monitor the employee and make her feel uncomfortable. Based on this evidence, the district court did not err in granting summary judgment against this claim.

The case is No. 23-2932.

Judge: Jackson-Akiwumi, C.

Attorneys: Austin B. Borton (Leavell & Borton) for Bankruptcy Estate of Santoasha Harris. Katherine A. Headley, Office of the City Attorney, for City of Milwaukee.

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