Cite as: 524 U. S. 775 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
shortcomings in harsh or vulgar terms. A third example might be the supervisor who, as here, expresses his sexual interests in ways having no apparent object whatever of serving an interest of the employer. If a line is to be drawn between scope and frolic, it would lie between the first two examples and the third, and it thus makes sense in terms of traditional agency law to analyze the scope issue, in cases like the third example, just as most federal courts addressing that issue have done, classifying the harassment as beyond the scope of employment.
The second reason goes to an even broader unanimity of views among the holdings of District Courts and Courts of Appeals thus far. Those courts have held not only that the sort of harassment at issue here was outside the scope of supervisors' authority, but, by uniformly judging employer liability for co-worker harassment under a negligence standard, they have also implicitly treated such harassment as outside the scope of common employees' duties as well. See Blankenship v. Parke Care Centers, Inc., 123 F. 3d 868, 872- 873 (CA6 1997), cert. denied, 522 U. S. 1110 (1998); Fleming v. Boeing Co., 120 F. 3d 242, 246 (CA11 1997); Perry v. Ethan Allen, Inc., 115 F. 3d 143, 149 (CA2 1997); Yamaguchi v. United States Dept. of Air Force, 109 F. 3d 1475, 1483 (CA9 1997); Varner v. National Super Markets, Inc., 94 F. 3d 1209, 1213 (CA8 1996), cert. denied, 519 U. S. 1110 (1997); McKenzie v. Illinois Dept. of Transp., 92 F. 3d 473, 480 (CA7 1996); Andrade, 88 F. 3d, at 261; Waymire v. Harris County, 86 F. 3d 424, 428-429 (CA5 1996); Hirase-Doi v. U. S. West Communications, Inc., 61 F. 3d 777, 783 (CA10 1995); Andrews v. Philadelphia, 895 F. 2d 1469, 1486 (CA3 1990); cf. Morrison v. Carleton Woolen Mills, Inc., 108 F. 3d 429, 438 (CA1 1997) (applying "knew or should have known" standard to claims of environmental harassment by a supervisor); see also 29 CFR § 1604.11(d) (1997) (employer is liable for coworker harassment if it "knows or should have known of the conduct, unless it can show that it took immediate and ap-
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