Cite as: 524 U. S. 775 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
action with tangible consequences, like firing and demotion. See supra, at 790. And we have already noted some examples of liability provided by the Restatement itself, which suggest that an affirmative misuse of power might be required. See supra, at 802 (telegraph operator sends false messages, a store manager cheats customers, editor publishes libelous editorial).
But neat examples illustrating the line between the affirmative and merely implicit uses of power are not easy to come by in considering management behavior. Supervisors do not make speeches threatening sanctions whenever they make requests in the legitimate exercise of managerial authority, and yet every subordinate employee knows the sanctions exist; this is the reason that courts have consistently held that acts of supervisors have greater power to alter the environment than acts of coemployees generally, see supra, at 802-803. How far from the course of ostensible supervisory behavior would a company officer have to step before his orders would not reasonably be seen as actively using authority? Judgment calls would often be close, the results would often seem disparate even if not demonstrably contradictory, and the temptation to litigate would be hard to resist. We think plaintiffs and defendants alike would be poorly served by an active-use rule.
The other basic alternative to automatic liability would avoid this particular temptation to litigate, but allow an employer to show as an affirmative defense to liability that the employer had exercised reasonable care to avoid harassment and to eliminate it when it might occur, and that the complaining employee had failed to act with like reasonable care to take advantage of the employer's safeguards and otherwise to prevent harm that could have been avoided. This composite defense would, we think, implement the statute sensibly, for reasons that are not hard to fathom.
Although Title VII seeks "to make persons whole for injuries suffered on account of unlawful employment discrim-
805
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