SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT This is a case of Bakker & Thomas negligently allowing appellant and former employee Anita Jones

to suffer from hostile environment sexual harassment as enumerated in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 42 U.S.C. 2000e-2. An employer is liable for an employees harassment when they have been negligent either in discovering or remedying the harassment. Through this appeal, Ms. Jones, brings her case before this Court on de novo review. Ms. Jones states that under the standards set by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title VII, Bakker & Thomas had both constructive and actual notice of her sexual harassment, and that Bakker & Thomas failed to take adequate remedial measures. Ms. Jones asks this Court to reverse the trial courts ruling that Bakker & Thomas is not liable to Ms. Jones on the theory of negligence. First, the trial court incorreclty found that Bakker & Thomas was not liable to Jones under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 42 U.S.C. 2000e-2 for hostile environment sexual harassment upon the theory of negligence, because Jones was unable to follow Bakker & Thomass policy for reporting sexual harrassment. Ms. Jones did not follow Bakker & Thomass policy because the policy was unreasonable. As the United States Supreme Court stated, the presence of a grievance procedure does not automatically pardon an employer from liability. The procedure must facilitate an employees reporting instances of sexual harassment. In this case, Bakker & Thomass grievance procedure was inadequate and unreasonable, because Jones had no independent point person outlined in the policy to whom she could reasonably report. The grievance procedure listed two possible channels of reporting; in reality both channels discouraged Ms. Jones to report her harasser. Williams and Swaggart, the sole channels explicitly mentioned in the policy, had uncomfortably strong ties to Ms. Joness harasser, Clarence Kennedy. Swaggart was Kennedys brother in law, and Williams, Kennedy, and Swaggart went to lunch together most days. Also, they

were often known to play golf together. Furthermore, Kennedy was a rainmaker for the firm, making reporting him to the managing partner all the more difficult for Jones. Because both possible persons to whom Jones could report were such unpalatable options, Jones sought a more reasonable person for her to report the harassment; the head of human resources. Therefore, this Court should find that Bakker & Thomass grievance procedure failed to encourage employees to report being sexually harassed, and in fact was a hindrance to Ms. Joness efforts. As a result, Bakker & Thomas can be said to have had constructive notice of Ms. Joness sexual harassment. Second, the tiral court incorreclty found that Bakker & Thomas is protected from a claim of sexual harassment premised on actual knowledge because it had in effect a well disseminated policy against sexual harassment, and Anita Jones failed to invoke that policy. As stated above, the policy did not provide adequate alternative avenues of redress. When an employer fails to establish adequate channels for complaint, as occurred in this case, the Court must determine if the employee reported to the individual she reasonably believed to be able to receive and forward complaints of harassment. Because the appropriate channels were blocked, i.e. Williams and Swaggart were unacceptable to report to due to their close ties to Kennedy, Jones wrote an unsigned letter to the Human Resources Director, Tripp, informing her that she was being sexually harrassed by Kennedy, giving Bakker & Thomas actual notice. Although Tripp was not a designated channel under the policy, it is ordinarily the duty of a human resources director to receive and forward complaints of sexual harassment. Jones reasonably thought Tripp to be an appropriate person to report harassment, because Tripp was the leader of the firms sexual harassment training program. In one session, Jones heard Tripp state that she would "take care of any harassment that she came across. Tripp failed to take adequate remedial measures, once she had received Joness letter, in that she waited five full business days before responding to the complaint. Furthermore, Tripps response was inadequate in

that it only referred the author of the complaint back to the policy and procedures manual. Tripp should have taken more care with Joness complaint, and in the very least answered the next day. Also, Tripp should have initiated an investigation to uncover the situation. If Bakker & Thomas had had an adequate grievance procedure they would have known about Joness sexual harassment. Because their policy was inadequate, this Court should overrule the lower court, and find that Bakker & Thomas had constructive notice of Joness sexual harassment, and Bakker & Thomas failed to take adequate remedial measures. Third, the trial court incorectly found that it was impossible to know if the firm could have corrected the conduct of Mr. Kennedy towards Ms. Jones, because Ms. Jones did not afford the firm the chance to effect remedial measures. Bakker & Thomas did have actual notice because Jones informed Williams of her sexual harrassment. Baker & Thomas did not take adequate remedial measures once Williams was notified because of Williamss negligence. During his repremand of Kennedy for sexually harrassing Jones, Williams was overheard asking Kennedy if he was, 'having trouble getting dates. Furthurmore, Williams did not remove Kennedy from the project he was working on with Jones. As a result, Kennedy further harrassed Jones the very next day, insisting that she 'wear a tight sweater to their late night work-related rendezvous. Kennedy did not act like a man who was taking Williamss reprimand to heart. Had he taken Joness complaint seriously, Williams should have seen to it that Kennedy and Jones were taken off the same project. Because Jones saw no further avenues for redress, and it became obvious to her that her complaints were not being dealt with appropriately by Bakker & Thomas, she was forced to resign. This Court has an opportunity to send a message to employers that sexual harassment in the workplace will not be tolerated. For all of these reasons, we request this Court reverse the trial courts holding, and remand on the issue of damages.